Choice: A Terrible Splendor
by PetitDejeuner
Summary: Choice is a wonderful thing. But how will it affect Sakura now that she has to combat an unnamed disease? And how will it help her realize what she's feeling for a certain lazy genius? And WHY is Orochimaru suddenly interested in her? [ShikaSaku]
1. Commencement

**Choice:**

**A Terrible Splendor**

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Author's Note: Wow, I really am obsessed with Naruto. And Sakura. And Sakura pairings. Argh. Anyways, I was so hyped by the enormous fanbase for my last fic, The Art of Deception, I decided (big surprise) to make a new fic. The pairing on this one is odd, yes, but extremely lovable. I'm doing ShikaSaku, just because it's totally underwritten and totally fun to read and write. Please don't discriminate because of the pairing and read it anyway, because I'd really like to see how many people end up liking it. Yes, Neji is in this story, but only as a brother figure, and only because he's just so cool I couldn't resist putting him in.

Disclaimer: I wish I owned Naruto. I don't. If I did, Neji, Gaara, or Shikamaru and Sakura would be hooking up, and Sasuke wouldn't be such a jackass. 'Nuff said.

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_Act I: Commencement_

Team Seven's leader's only visible gray eye crinkled in delight, and his mask folded slightly at the sides, a sign that he was smiling. A gloved hand swept through his usual shock of silvery hair as the other dug into his pocket. "It's good to see you all again," he said cheerfully, his eye opening to survey the three people in front of him.

Uzumaki Naruto gave his former teacher his trademark fox grin. "Kaka-sensei, you old scarecrow! We haven't seen you in months!" The Kyuubi-holding blonde's spiky hair now had a gold tint to it, and his cerulean eyes were clearer, a little less wide. He had a strong jaw, giving him a handsome profile, and the whisker markings on his cheeks no longer looked out of place. All the training he'd done with his Ero-Sennin had given him a more toned physique and a healthy tan, along with a sprinkling of freckles across his nose that his girlfriend, Hinata, absolutely loved. Yes, this nineteen-year-old Naruto was certainly different physically than his fifteen-year-old self, but his personality was the same; he still loved fun, and regularly played pranks on his fellow teammates.

One of said teammates actually managed a small smile. "Yeah, where were you?" Uchiha Sasuke's arms were folded in their regular position, and he pretty much looked the same as ever. His hair was longer, though still spiked in the back, and his eyes were a little brighter since he'd returned to Konoha in a half-dead triumph from escaping Orochimaru's tight grasp, Itachi's head dangling from his belt. He'd received a full pardon from the Godaime Hokage, Tsunade, and a village-arrest for six months was his only punishment. Surprisingly, his personality had actually lifted after his escapades with Orochimaru, and he was now like a brother to Naruto and the only girl on the team.

The girl in question ran to her ex-sensei and gave him a huge hug. Kakashi thought he heard a rib crack. "Kakashi-sensei!" Kakashi smiled gently and stroked her short pink hair. She pulled back, and he nearly keeled over. Since when did Sakura look like that? He'd have to start fighting off the boys with more than kunai now. She was still rather petite-- somewhere around 5'5" and 125 pounds, Haruno Sakura was still very fit, with muscles down her arms and legs. She had also developed curves in the past couple of years. Also, no longer was she the self-pitying girl she had been at age twelve-- Sakura was determined and strong. She had surpassed the Hokage in medical skill and chakra control, and had also been trained by various other people; Rock Lee helped her with taijutsu, TenTen with her weapon skill (which was now formidable), and Hyuuga Neji with her ninjutsu. To put not too fine a point on it, you didn't want to get on her bad side anymore... well, not like you did before, either.

All three of them were ANBU jounin, and all three made up Team Seven. Sai had left once Sasuke came back, promising to come again after finding emotions, and though he was sorely missed (even by Sakura), everyone was looking forward to his return.

Kakashi coughed. "Sakura... can't breathe..." Her monstrous strength was scaring him.

Sakura blinked, then released the man with a sheepish smile. "Gomen, Kaka-sensei."

He let out another cough and waved his hand in an 'it's okay' movement. "And to answer your question, Sasuke, I was on a mission. Top secret." He sat on the grass, stretching his legs out.

"A mission? Are you injured?" Sakura frowned, readying her medic's hands.

"No, no, there wasn't any danger," Kakashi answered dismissively, gesturing towards the rest of them to sit. They automatically sat, Naruto with his eyebrow raised.

"What was it?" he asked, looking confused.

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "He said it was top secret, dobe. He's not going to tell us."

"Shut up, teme!"

"Nar-" Kakashi tried to stop the fight, but they kept on.

"Baka."

"Asshole!"

"Dimwit."

"Pussy!"

Sakura looked at Kakashi, rolling her eyes with a sigh and cracking her knuckles. Kakashi wisely scooted out of the way.

"Dolt."

"Arrogant prick!"

"Idi-"

**_Boom._** Sakura looked at them over the smoking crater in the ground, seafoam eyes narrowed pointedly. "Shut up."

"Hai, Sakura," they both mumbled, and Kakashi chuckled. Who had control over Team Seven, after all?

Naruto spoke first, glancing nervously in Sakura's direction. "Kaka-sensei, why'd you call us over here, anyway? What's up?"

Kakashi's face suddenly turned serious. "Not for fun and games, actually," he said gravely, looking at them. "Although it's great to see you guys again, we're going to have to get down to business right now. Tsunade-sama is briefing the other ANBU, but she let me break it to you guys so we could all talk about it together."

Sasuke looked at him intently. "What is it?"

Kakashi took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, through his teeth. "There have been outbreaks of an unexplainable disease on the borders of the Fire Country and Sound, and it's never been seen before. It's an unknown disease, and the symptoms don't even match up."

"What are the symptoms?" Sakura asked, her medic's analytical mind springing into action.

"Fever, vomiting, and..."

"And?"

Kakashi frowned. "It acts like the worst kind of genjutsu, and it's nearly impossible to break out of. It makes to relive the most horrible things in your past, and then makes up the most horrible things you could think of in your future and shows them to you. It's like Chinese Water Torture; it slowly makes you go insane, thinking that you're seeing what will happen to you or your loved ones in the future."

Sakura nodded. "Okay. Keep going."

Kakashi looked uneasily towards Sasuke. "Also... a curse seal appears on their neck."

Sasuke stiffened noticeably, and Sakura put a hand on his shoulder. It was a token of their growing brother-sister relationship that he didn't shrug it off. "Hai?"

The silver-haired jounin nodded. "Except... the curse seal doesn't feed off of chakra. It does, in a way, I guess, but not directly. Nobody knows exactly what it takes its energy off of, but it totally wastes the sick person. It kills them in three days."

Naruto's mouth was open, and his eyes looked horrified. "Where did it come from?"

Kakashi frowned. "Nobody really knows, which is why we're sending a team out there. It spreads quickly, so we have to find out where it comes from and destroy it. Because of the curse seal, though, we're leaning towards Orochimaru. If he somehow made up this illness, he could infect the entire country and many more, and then flaunt the cure in our faces so we surrender to him. That just increases our need to hurry."

"Who's the team?" Sasuke asked curiously, fingering a blade of green grass.

Kakashi shrugged. "Tsunade-sama will decide that. She has to take the most skilled for this particular mission... which means that there's absolutely no way of knowing who she'll choose. This mission is S-class, definitely, so it'll require ANBU skill or something close to it, and it needs all sorts of specialists."

Silence fell on the group as Sakura looked at the trees. What a horrible thing... a disease that could kill someone in something as little as three days? What a weapon. Kakashi was right... this was bad. The faster they got a team out there, the better. "Kakashi-sensei."

"Hai?"

"You said you wanted to tell us. Why? We could have just gone to the briefing with the others." She looked at him sharply. "And don't say it's just because you wanted to see us. You can see us plenty without saying all of this. You're hiding something from us."

The two other teens in the group turned towards Kakashi with their own respective glares in realization. "That's right," Naruto agreed.

Kakashi shifted uncomfortably. Damn it, why'd she have to be so smart? _I was hoping I could avoid this._ "Orochimaru sent us a message earlier about the disease."

Naruto's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "So, it isn't just speculation that Orochimaru was causing this-- it's fact. Why lie to us?"

"The message contained something else." He looked away determinedly.

Sasuke and Sakura exchanged glances. "What did he say?" Sasuke asked, fists clenched.

"He didn't say anything-- he asked for something. Some_one_, actually."

The three felt a gnawing feeling of anxiousness in their stomachs.

"He said he'd heard about the Godaime's new apprentice."

Sakura's eyes widened.

"He remembers her as a weak little girl who could hardly protect her friends."

Naruto's eyes narrowed.

"Or her parents."

Sasuke looked confused and angry at the same time, where Sakura now looked on the verge of tears. "M-my parents were killed in the last Sound raid," she told Sasuke in a wobbling whisper. He closed his eyes briefly. How could he not have known?

"He said he wants to see how she's changed. He says she... she interests him." Kakashi looked at Sakura. "I'm sorry, Sakura-- he asked for you to be on the ANBU team."

Sakura's face paled around five shades, and Naruto put an arm around her. "No way is that sick bastard going to take our Sakura-chan," he said through gritted teeth. "He took Sasuke once before-- I'm not going to have Team Seven broken anymore. I won't allow it."

Sasuke put a hand on Sakura's and squeezed it gently. "Neither will I."

Kakashi ran a hand through his hair. "Neither would I, if we had a chance. But this could be our only lead to getting to Orochimaru... and... well, honestly, it's Sakura's descision. Hers and the Godaime's."

"Oi, Forehead!" Ino's usually boisterous voice sounded slightly weary as she trudged over the hill to get to them. "I guess you heard the news?"

Sakura nodded numbly.

Ino said nothing for a moment, but then burst into tears, pushing the boys away and launching at her friend with a hug. "S-Sakura, please refuse," she hiccuped as the pink-haired girl calmly stroked her hair. "I-I don't w-want anything to h-happen to y-y-you!"

Sakura looked almost serene, though her face was white. "Ino..."

The chuunin blonde drew back, sniffing. "Hokage-sama wants to see you."

Sakura nodded, looking towards the others. "Kaka-sensei... it was great to see you."

Her old instructor bowed his head. "We'll meet back here at nine. Can you make your descision by then?"

Sakura nodded almost dazedly. "Hai. I can." She smiled slightly at their worried faces. "Don't worry. I'll see you all at nine. Ino-pig?" She helped the girl up and they started walking towards the tall Hokage's Tower, leaving the three male members of Team Seven sitting on the grass.

Naruto looked at them, his eyes the picture of concern. "Sakura-chan..."

"She's stronger now, Naruto," Kakashi pointed out. "You of all people should realize that, considering how many times she's kicked your ass."

Sasuke managed a smirk. "True. But still. This is Orochimaru."

Kakashi looked at the sky, watching the clouds pass by slowly. "Hai. It is."

* * *

"Tsunade-shishou?" Sakura knocked lightly on the door. The voices continued, and she sighed irritably, knocking louder. "Tsunade-shishou!" 

The voices stopped suddenly, and the door opened. Sakura's jade eyes met the pearly white ones of Hyuuga Neji, and she nodded her head. "Arigato, Neji-san."

"Sakura-san." He nodded as well, opening the door wider so she could pass by.

_Ever the gentleman_, Sakura thought with a small smile, feeling guiltilythat it was hardly warranted in the situation she was currently in. The other four occupants in the room were Nara Shikamaru, who gave her a lazy wave; Jiraiya, who gave her a wink and smile; Shizune, who looked close to tears, went all-out with a tight hug; and Tsunade herself, who smiled sadly and motioned for her apprentice to sit.

Sakura sat between Shikamaru and Neji, tugging nervously on a strand of rosy-pink hair. "Tsunade-shishou. I hear that Orochimaru asked for me specifically."

Tsunade bowed her head in a 'yes'. "I'm afraid so, Sakura. This could be the only way to catch Orochimaru in the act, the only chance to actually capture him and put him away. But I understand if you don't want to go, if it might be too dangerous."

"Shishou-"

"No, no, really, it would be okay. We'd send a team out, anyway, probably with Shizune as our medic nin. It would be fine. You can stay."

"Shishou, I really-" What was with people interrupting other people today?

"Orochimaru is dangerous, Sakura, and you've only seen him a couple times, let alone fought him. It's all for the best, really, and none of you want to comply to a homicidal maniac's demands anyway. You-"

"SHISHOU!" For the second time that day, a boom caused by Sakura's fist rocked the ground. Shikamaru was jolted out of his reverie, and Neji looked slightly schocked. Tsunade blinked a couple of times, and Ton-ton jumped out of Shizune's arms, squealing in fright. Jiraiya's mouth fell open, much like Naruto's had earlier."Damn it, Tsunade-shishou, I accept!"

Tsunade's hands fell limply onto the desk. "I... wh... pardon?"

"I accept the mission," Sakura repeated, standing from her chair. "I'm more than capable."

"I know, Sakura, but..."

"Shishou, I'm not a little girl anymore. I'm ANBU." Sakura put her hands on the desk so she was directly facing her teacher. "I love you for trying to protect me, but I'm going to have to face him sooner or later if he wants to see me, and it's better if I go directly than risking more lives just by not sending me." She held up a hand, for Shizune was showing every sign of interrupting. "Kakashi-sensei told me about this. It's a disease. I'm a medic nin. The best medic nin we have.You told me so yourself. One of the stages of this disease is genjutsu, right? That's my specialty. My strong point."

Tsunade looked at the girl with a motherly compassion. "No, Sakura, I won't let you. It's too dangerous, and-" Jiraiya cleared his throat, and Tsunade turned on him with an almost inhuman growl. "_Yes_?"

"I think it's a good idea to let her go," he said simply. "I think, in her words, that she's 'more than capable'. She's the best we have in the fields themission needs. Sakura sent the old pervert a thankful smile, and he returned it with a nod.

Tsunade looked lost for a moment. Were those tears collecting at the corners of her eyes? "Nara-- Hyuuga! Get out of here and come back in when I yell for you."

The two jumped as their names were addressed, and filed out of the room, closing the door softly behind them with a click.

Tsunade got out from behind the desk and hugged her apprentice, her massive breasts pressed against her student's chest. "Ohh, Sakura, Sakura... are you sure you want to?"

Sakura, not used to this open display of affection, hugged her teacher back. "Shishou, I'm positive. I can do this. I need to do this."

Tsunade released Sakura and went back behind the desk, head down. When she looked back up, all traces of tears were gone. She was Hokage again. "Nara, Hyuuga, get your asses in here!" she shouted. The two shinobi walked back in and sat back down, looking slightly disconcerted.

"Shishou, can we have a more detailed explanation of the disease? Kaka-sensei was kind of vague." Sakura sat back in her regular spot, respecting her teacher's need to vent.

Tsunade nodded. "Shizune?"

Her assistant distributed glossy, blown-up photos. "These are photographs of a victim of the disease."

Sakura frowned. They looked like they were in terrible agony. The man's muscles were tensed and his fists were clenched. The curse seal on his neck was spread all over his body, and his eyes were open, though glazed over. The photo was blurred at his arms and legs, which meant that he had been fidgeting and shivering violently when it was taken. "Are there any particular stages?" Sakura asked, running a finger down the man's face in quiet, horrified sympathy.

"Each of the three days reveals a new, more horrible symptom. On the first day, the curse seal appears andstarts spreading and the victim gets a small fever. On the second day, the seal grows more, and the fever rises to around one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The vomiting starts, as does the shuddering. The genjutsu starts. On the third day, the fever reaches up to one hundred seven degrees. The vomiting stops, but the genjutsu reaches its peak, and the victim screams violently for most of the day. Finally, the disease ends in inevitable death, always at sunset. It has to be some sort of seal on it to keep it from ending after or before that, but we haven't found anything yet. We'll have a team on it while you three are on the field."

Sakura grimaced as Neji asked his question. "Where exactly will we go?"

"The western corner of the border between Sound and Fire. That's where most of the victims are, and where Orochimaru will probably be around. The town is closed down and in quarantine, but you might be able to find out something from the people that are still standing."

Shikamaru frowned. "How troublesome. Are we in danger of contracting this disease?"

Tsunade bit her lip and tapped her red-painted fingernails on the desk, making a nervous rhythm. "Hai. Very much so, especially because we don't know what Orochimaru does to cause it. This is why the mission is so dangerous, and why we need a skilled medic nin. But you three... you're the best I have, the best that'll go."

The three shinobi nodded in mutual agreement; whatever would happen, they did it on their own free will. They volunteered. They had a choice.

A choice.

_My choice. I chose to do this_, Sakura thought with determination, subconsciously clenching her fists. "When do we leave?"

"Tomorrow," Tsunade answered, regret evident in her voice. "Tomorrow. You leave tomorrow at five AM sharp so you can get there early. I'll give you a maximum of one week there. At the end of seven days, you come home immediately, understand?" She gazed at them gravely, hands folded.

They nodded in understanding, and Tsunade unfolded her hands, raking them through her hair with a sad sigh. "Dismissed. Gomen nasai to all of you."

The three ninja exited the room, walking down the long staircase of the Hokage's offices in silence. Only when they reached ground level did Shikamaru start speaking. "Well, as troublesome as it is, I'll see you two at five tomorrow. I have to go pack. Troublesome mission."

Sakura shook her head with a smile. "Sayonara, Shikamaru-san."

He smiled slightly at her. "Sayonara."

Neji nodded to him, and the two continued walking. Sakura fidgeted anxiously with her hands, playing with her slim fingers. "Neji-san?"

"Hn."

What was that, the answer of the generation? She sighed. "Are you nervous?"

He was extremely quiet for a moment, and Sakura was afraid she'd offended him. Opening her mouth to apologize, she was shocked into silence when he put up a hand to stop her. "Hai. I am. I think I'd be a fool not to be."

Sakura smiled in relief. "The almighty Hyuuga Neji is scared? That's a relief. Now I know I'm not alone."

The tall, sepia-haired man put a hand on her shoulder like a brother. "Don't worry, you're not. I could tell for a fact that Nara's chakra spiked dramatically when he saw those pictures."

Sakura shuddered. "So did mine. I could feel it. But don't you feel horrible for those poor victims?"

Neji nodded as they neared the Hyuuga estate. "I do. But that's not the point. We're going there to help them, Sakura, not pity them."

Sakura's lips rolled in in a picture of anxiety. "I know, I know. But it makes you think, doesn't it? Like... what if that was me? Or Naruto? Or even Lee or Ino or Tenten or Hinata? Can you imagine what it would be like to watch them in the state they'd be in?"

Neji frowned and put his hand on the gate.

"With any luck, we won't have to."

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Sakura finished off the last of her sashimi and walked towards Team Seven's meeting place, contemplating their reactions to her descision. Oh, well... it didn't matter. This was her choice. She was their greatest hope, after all, both for treating and curing the disease and luring Orochimaru out of his hiding place so he could be captured and killed. What a mission that would be! Killing Orochimaru, the person that had caused all this suffering for generations... 

"Sakura-chan!" Before she could think anymore, a blonde, orange, and black blur nearly tackled her in a hug. "What did you say? What's up?"

Sakura ruffled Naruto's hair, looking up at the other two. Kakashi sat, his orange book sticking out of his pocket instead of in his hands, and Sasuke sat in his usually brooding position, his fingers interlaced and in front of his mouth, his elbows resting on the knees of his crossed legs. "Sakura?" Kakashi prompted.

She sat down across from Sasuke. "I said yes."

Silence.

Suddenly, she was enveloped in another hug, though this time it was by all three men of Team Seven. Surrounded by two 'brothers' and a 'father', she let the tears come. She cried into Sasuke's shoulder as he held her, Naruto's arms tightened around her waist, and Kakashi stroked her hair. "I... it was the right thing to do," she sniffed, tears running down her face and onto Sasuke's shirt. "They n-- they need me. My medic skills, my genjutsu. They need me for Orochimaru. It was the right thing to do, right? Right?" Reassurance. She needed reassurance that yes, it had been the right choice. Yes, it had been the right thing to do.

"Damn, Sakura," Naruto said, his voice somehow choked. "You're wonderful. I don't think I could have been brave enough to take that on."

Sasuke sighed into her hair, watching the pink locks fly back. "Don't worry, Sakura. You did the right thing."

"We're proud of you," Kakashi murmured. "Very proud."

She pulled back slowly, sniffling. Naruto wiped away her tears with his thumb. "Aaah, Sakura-chan... you're like a sister to us. We're happy for you no matter what, and I know for a fact that you'll do a fantastic job with this mission."

Sakura smiled wearily. "Arigato, Naruto. I love you guys."

Kakashi's eye crinkled, but in a sort of halfhearted way. "Right back at you, Sakura. You'd better go now... get some rest before you leave."

Sakura nodded, wiping away the last of the tears. "R-right. I will. Wish me luck."

"Every ramen bowl I get," Naruto promised with a small smile.

"That's a lot of luck, then," Sakura said, laughing slightly. She walked away slowly, as if trying to memorize the earth she stepped on with her feet.

"Kakashi-sensei," Sasuke said lowly, "what if she... she doesn't..."

Kakashi looked at the sky for the second time that day, gazing at the stars and wishing that his only female student... the student that he had shamefully neglected in her younger years... could be spared.

"It was her choice."


	2. Balancing Act

**Choice:**

**A Terrible Splendor**

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Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews. I'm glad that I have the ability to make even the first chapter into a tear-jerker. You guys really make me feel good about myself, so thanks a lot for that. I hope you all love this next chapter!

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_Act II: Balacing Act_

4:30 AM. Shikamaru rapped lazily on Sakura's door, yawning so widely he thought he felt his jaw crack. Why had _he_ been given the task of escorting her to the Hokage's Tower? And second, why couldn't she just walk there herself? But no, Tsunade just had to insist that he would walk with her to the Tower to meet Hyuuga Neji. He'd protested, of course-- actually, he protested vehemently. She was Konoha's top kunoichi, and he had to guard her while she walked the half-mile to the Hokage's Tower.

But, eventually, Tsunade had cracked her knuckles, and Shikamaru had no choice but to accept.

So here he was, knocking repeatedly on the door, never breaking his rhythm, and examining a shuriken held in his other hand.

"NARA, IF YOU DON'T STOP KNOCKING I'M GOING TO BREAK YOUR HAND!" Sakura's shout jarred him, making him quickly withdraw his fist. There was a muffled thumping and angry muttering for a moment, then she opened the door with such force he was afraid it would rip from its hinges. "Damn, Shikamaru-san, can't you wait a minute? I couldn't find my gloves." Said fingerless black gloves were now being tightened on her hands with her teeth as she adjusted the metal plate on them.

"You should have packed last night," he muttered, looking her over with a hidden smile. Sakura was definitely dressed for a mission, at least. She was wearing a black mesh shirt under a green, Chinese-collared, no-sleeve shirt that bared her stomach and went down at the neck enough to reveal some of the mesh, and over that was the standard ANBU vest. She wore black, baggy shorts with many pockets that went down to just above her knees. She had numerous pouches filled with weapons and a couple scrolls hanging from her belt. She was wearing regular ninja sandals and the fingerless gloves she'd just finished tightening.

Releasing her teeth from the fabric, she scowled at him. "I did pack last night. I just forgot these. And don't you say a thing about how a ninja is supposed to be observant," she added quickly, "because I was a _little_ preoccupied last night."

Shikamaru, slightly surprised that she had guessed what he was going to say, merely shrugged. "Understandable."

"Why are you here, anyway?" Sakura asked as they started walking, slinging a bag over her shoulder. "I can walk to the Hokage's Tower by myself, you know." She looked slightly amused.

The lazy jounin sighed. "Your troublesome teacher threatened me with one of those damned punches if I didn't walk you there."

The jade-eyed kunoichi giggled weakly as she put her hair into a ponytail, putting her hitai-ate in its usual place and putting her ANBU mask around her neck. "Ano... Tsunade-shishou has her ways of persuasion, doesn't she?" She shook her head. "Shikamaru-san, why do you think she wanted you to walk me? I mean... it's not like Orochimaru is going to jump out from behind Ichiraku and throw a kunai at me, is it?" A frown marred her nearly-perfect features.

Shikamaru gave a halfhearted sigh, shoving his hands into the pockets of his pants. "Who knows? She's probably just worried. Either that," he mused, "or she wants us to get better acquainted before the mission. We haven't been on a mission together since that one last year, and a lot's changed since then."

Sakura nodded thoughtfully. "Good guess." She gave him a small smile. "So... let's start. I've heard from Ino that you and Temari-chan aren't-"

"No," Shikamaru interrupted with an irritated sigh, "we were never 'going out'. Just good friends. Rather like you and the Hyuuga."

Sakura's eyes widened comically. "People think we're going out?"

Shikamaru nodded absently. "Hai, Hyuuga and others..."

"Others!"

"Uchiha, Naruto-san, the Kazekage..."

"The Kazekage? Gaara-san?" Sakura let out a stream of laughter that made Shikamaru want to step back a little. She stopped walking for a moment and continued laughing, holding her stomach and wiping little tears from the corners of her eyes. Shikamaru couldn't help smiling. Her happiness was contagious, and the way she was bent over, smiling in ecstasy and mirth, was really kind of cute...

Wait, _what_?

_I didn't just say that_, Shikamaru thought hastily, shaking his head. "Are you quite finished?" he asked, eyebrow raised.

Sakura smiled. "Ohh, Shikamaru-san, you've made me laugh more than I have in weeks." She put a hand on his shoulder. "Mou... Gaara-san and I are good friends, that's all. I mean, I saved his brother's life and helped him recover after Chiyo-baa-san died, and I've been on missions to Suna for a long time."

Shikamaru looked at her hand and suppressed a grin. "Glad to have made you happy," he said, "but we'd better start moving again before the shop owners realize that it's 4:49 and start throwing things at us for waking them up."

"Good idea," Sakura said, still giggling slightly. She removed her hand and started walking faster, Shikamaru smiling softly behind her. This girl... no wonder she was friends with everyone. It was impossible not to be. The way she acted around you... like she was already your best friend, the nicest person in the world. No wonder even the cold Kazekage had melted under her friendly gaze.

As they neared the Tower, Sakura's face gradually changed from one of happiness and carefree humor into something worse. She was frowning slightly and biting a fingernail nervously. Shikamaru's own brow creased with hers. "Sakura."

"Hm?" she replied halfheartedly.

Shikamaru grasped her wrist and pulled her to the side of a building. "Are you okay? Two minutes ago, you were dying of laughter, and now you look like you're about to faint."

Sakura, to his immense surprise, leaned her head against his chest, the top of her pink-haired head only reaching his chin. "Shikamaru-san, I'm nervous."

Not knowing what else to do, the brown-haired ninja put a hand on her shoulder. "Everyone is, Sakura-san. Don't worry about it. We're all here with you, to help."

"I know," she said, "and I appreciate it more than you know. But I just... I just feel like something bad is going to happen."

Shikamaru shook his head. "Troublesome women superstition," he said dismissively, leading her back out to the open road, where Neji was waiting for them. "There's no stock in it."

Sakura rolled her eyes and playfully punched him in the arm. "You sexist pig."

"Ow!" Shikamaru rubbed his shoulder. "I thought Ino was the pig."

The jade-eyed girl punched him again. "I'm the only one who gets to call her that, you."

Neji smirked slightly at the exchange between them. "Come on, Sakura, don't injure him _before_ a mission. Beat him up when we're done."

Shikamaru shot him a glare. "Your support overwhelms me," he said sarcastically.

Tsunade emerged from the building with tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She surveyed the group carefully: tall, proud. _Ready to fight for Konoha, even at the risk of death_, she thought with a small smile. "Are you all ready to go?"

"Hai!"

The Godaime Hokage sighed softly and nodded. "Good luck, you three. Remember: a week. Then you come back home."

Sakura nodded. "Tsunade-shishou. Sayonara!" The three leapt into the trees, distant specks of white and pink and brown, vanishing into the slow sunrise like ink on paper. Tsunade smiled.

"Sayonara."

* * *

For a long time, the only sounds Sakura heard were the light taps of their feet against the branches, the whoosh of wind in her ears, and the rustling of leaves as they brushed past. They were familiar sounds, and she was grateful for them. How many times had she set off on a mission hearing these exact same sounds? But this was different somehow. Maybe because of her ominous feeling? Maybe because Orochimaru was now targeting her? Maybe because this was S-class? Or maybe because of something more... something deeper. This was no regular investigating mission. This was life-or-death, contamination-or-cure, save-or-condemn. 

For the first time, the entire gravity of the mission was pressed fully on the pink kunoichi's shoulders. If they didn't find a way to stop the disease, it would spread to Konoha. If they didn't capture Orochimaru, he would continue to terrorize them, probably spreading worse diseases or sending Kabuto to do his dirty work or persuading another poor, misguided youth to join his own little Crew of the Damned. And if one of their own caught the disease...

_That won't happen_, Sakura thought vehemently. _I won't let it. It can't. I'm a medic nin; I'll be able to do something._

Her senses piqued suddenly, and she turned just in time to see a kunai headed in her direction. Letting out a yell, she quickly grabbed one of her own and deflected. Her shout had caused her two companions to turn, and they were now next to her, weapons in hand. "Byakugan!" Neji exclaimed. Chakra veins puffed around and inside his eyes, surveying the perimeter. "There are twelve of them. Sound."

Sakura closed her eyes briefly, trying to sense them. What had Tsunade said? Expand her senses... 'look' for anything out of place. Opening her eyes, she grabbed a handful of shuriken and let them fly. As they hit trees and air, a group of shinobi leapt from the trees, landing in a circle around the three and immediately throwing weapons. Shikamaru cursed, deflecting them and rushing towards the shinobi nearest him. Neji did the same, sliding easily into taijutsu.

Sakura's group closed in on her, punching and kicking all at once. The top kunoichi quickly ducked and doged, wove her way through the fists and feet. She grabbed an outstretched leg and threw it into three others. "Strike," she taunted, fists flying towards the others. They dodged quickly. One, with red hair, grabbed her fist and sent a knee into her stomach, only to be met with a rather large stick. The real Sakura flew from the ground beneath them and punched. At the sound of a neck snap, the still-standing shinobi rushed towards her.

The bout of taijutsu was quick and lethal, and it took Sakura a lot to keep up. "This is ridiculous," she snarled angrily, Inner Sakura ranting inside. She back-handsprung away from an oncoming fist and leapt into the tree canopy. The ninja leapt after her, only to be stopped by a fierce shower of kunai and shuriken. Pinned to trees, the Sound shinobi could only watch as Sakura ran towards them, fist coiled and ready to strike.

Her first punch had such force that the tree the man was pinned to fell over onto his companion. Turning quickly, Sakura smiled. Neji's shinobi were piled almost neatly to the side, and Shikamaru was yawning against a tree. Neji suddenly frowned. "There's one missing."

Sakura's eyes widened as she sensed a prescence behind her. Shikamaru dove at her, all laziness forgotten, and they rolled as the Fuuma Shuriken that was about to go in her back landed harmlessly in a tree. Neji leapt forward, grabbing the Fuuma Shuriken and throwing it himself, striking the man in the stomach so hard the end of the weapon protruded from his back.

Sakura winced as blood and other fluids gushed from the man, only now realizing that she and Shikamaru were in a rather compromising position. He was on top of her, knees on either side of her legs and face only inches from her own.

Neji cleared his throat, an amused look coming into his eyes. "I think she'll be okay now, Shikamaru-san."

Shikamaru muttered under his breath as he released her. "Feh." A small tint appeared on their cheeks, and Sakura cleared her throat.

"So..." She looked at the corpses and littered bodies with seemingly intent interest. "Do you think this was a direct attack from Orochimaru, or just a coincidence?"

Neji frowned. "Where Orochimaru is concerned, there are never any coincidences. But it's hard to tell. They could be shinobi sent to Konoha, but we intercepted them."

Shikamaru shook his head. "They wouldn't have done that well in Konoha, not with Naruto and Uchiha and all the other high-rankings. If they couldn't get past all of us... they look like high chuunin level. They should have known they couldn't have been able to take a village of ANBU jounin and chuunin."

Sakura bit a hangnail. "If they weren't going to Konoha, then they must have been intended for a small group, or maybe they were just wanderers. But either way, we have to assume the worst: that Orochimaru knows who is coming and when. And if he knows that, then there's no telling what else he'll send to us."

Neji nodded. "We'll have to be on our guard at all times. What time is it?"

Shikamaru looked at his watch. "Eleven-thirty. Camp at ten PM?"

"Sounds good," Sakura said, checking for injuries. "Anyone hurt?"

"No, they were pretty mediocre,"Shikamaru replied casually. "Should we keep going?"

Neji nodded. "Double-time. They put a crimp in our schedule. This day counts as one of seven, and half of tomorrow will be spent on the journey, too."

As they took off, Sakura once again became lost in her thoughts. It seemed extremely possible that those chuunin had been sent by Orochimaru... but why? Did he want to take them out before they even got there? Unlikely, considering his message had said that he wanted to see her. Maybe their mission had been to kidnap her, but if it had, they would have lost. Sakura could have taken all twelve of those idiots with little difficulty. Sakura frowned, her forehead puckering in thought. Maybe... maybe it was a test. A test to see how strong they really were, to see how many obstacles they could overcome. If that was so, he must have known that they would defeat the group of shinobi... and so risked their lives with that knowledge. _Ruthless bastard snake_, Sakura thought angrily, tugging on her shirt to stop her fists from pounding into the nearest tree.

How could he do this? How could he ruin so many lives? She thought of Sasuke. Naruto. Tsunade. Jiraiya. How many deaths had he caused, and how many more would he? _How many tears will he wallow in_?

Sakura smirked slightly, determination radiating from her eyes.

_Not mine. Never mine._

_

* * *

_

"Toad beats slug. Slug beats snake. Snake beats toad. Those are the rules," Sakura explained, stifling a yawn. Neji slept soundly next to them while the moon shone through gaps in the trees, illuminating Shikamaru and Sakura's tired faces. Because of the increasing risk of attacks, they decided to double up the watch. "I can't believe you've never played this, Shikamaru-san."

He shrugged halfheartedly. "Not my fault."

"Seriously," Sakura huffed, "all you ever play is shogi." She brushed a strand of pink hair from her face and smiled. "Ready to play?"

"Iye."

Sakura face-planted into her hands. "Shikamaru-saaaan! What now?"

"Why does slug beat snake? That's not how it goes in the real world. Slugs don't eat snakes. Snakes don't bother slugs. Actually, except for snake beats toad, the whole game doesn't make sense." He leaned against the tree, watching as her hair shone from the moon's white light.

Sakura sighed and flopped over, onto her sleeping bag. "Maybe the game isn't meant for analyzing, Shikamaru-san. Maybe it's made for actually playing, instead. Besides, I kind of like it like that."

"Why?"

She closed her eyes, hiding the jade orbs from view. "Simple: it's a balance of power. That means that no one can ever be more powerful, right? If the toad gets out of hand, the snake keeps it in check. If the snake suddenly tries to rebel, the toad and slug crush it. It's a nice way to keep balance, don't you think?"

"If the world was ruled by toads, slugs, and snakes, then I guess it could."

Sakura giggled. "Well, I like it because it reminds me of the three Sannin. You know-- Tsunade-shishou as the slug, Orochimaru as the snake, and Jiraiya-sama as the toad."

"Then it should remind you of Team Seven, as well, shouldn't it?" Shikamaru asked, propping his feet up on a low branch.

His companion looked up. "Why do you say that?"

"Oh, come on, Sakura-san, you've never realized it? You three are following the paths of the Legendary Sannin. You're all training under one, or were,you all have the same skills as your respective teachers... pretty much the same personality, too." The strategist yawned and stretched.

Sakura was silent for a moment. "You really think that Sasuke will follow in Orochimaru's footsteps?"

Shikamaru looked at her. "I used to. Not anymore. He seems changed, don't you think?"

Sakura nodded, biting her lip. "That's what I thought, too."

A pregnant silence filled the air.

"I'm sorry you guys had to go through all of that," Shikamaru said, trying to be indifferent and failing miserably. Sympathy and care shone through his voice. "It must have been troublesome."

Sakura smiled warmly at him. "It was troublesome, Shikamaru-san. But we got through it in the end. And now all we need is for someone to defeat the snake."

Shikamaru looked at her. "Slug beats snake, you know."

"Hai, Tsunade _will_ probably be the one to defeat Orochimaru," Sakura said thoughtfully. She smiled suddenly. "I'm going to wake up Neji and get some sleep, okay? First watch is over." She smiled warmly at him. "Arigato. For, you know... talking with me."

"Troublesome girl," he muttered, but he was hiding a smile, and she knew it. She flicked him on the head anyway and shook Neji, taking his place and turning over so the moon wouldn't be in her eyes. _Wouldn't that be wonderful?_ she thought wistfully, playing with the corner of her blanket. _Tsunade defeating Orochimaru? Probably with Jiraiya's help, of course... and all of Konoha's. Naruto and Sasuke would definitely go into battle... so would I... and Kakashi-sensei, and Asuma-sensei, and Yamato-sensei..._ She smiled slightly, closing her eyes. _It's good to have a united village, isn't it? Gives a sense of security._ Slug beats snake. Snake beats toad. Toad beats slug. A balance. _We all need a balance...

* * *

_

Kakashi's feet touched softly on the floor of the Hokage's Tower, his mask not revealing anything. The moon shone in from the windows, and Shizune jerked awake from her chair, moving into the light to see better. "Kakashi-san?"

"Shizune-san." Kakashi bowed slightly. "Is Tsunade-sama awake? I need to speak to her."

The black-haired woman shrugged. "Probably. She's been worrying about Sakura-chan and their mission for the better part of the day."

"Arigato." Kakashi knocked on the door, and Tsunade's tired voice sounded from behind it.

"Come in."

Kakashi walked in, bowing to the Hokage and sitting down at her gesture. "Tsunade-sama, I haven't seen Sakura in months."

"Hai, you were on that Suna mission, weren't you?" Tsunade rubbed her eyes wearily. "Why?"

The silver-haired jounin fiddled absently with his glove. "I want to know if she was truly ready for the mission. What all does she know? I know she's improved greatly, but..."

"Kakashi..." Tsunade paused, biting her lip. "No offence to you; you're a wonderful teacher. But your attention was more focused on Sasuke and Naruto's growth then hers, wasn't it?"

Kakashi bowed his head. "An error I sincerely wish I could reverse."

The Godaime nodded in understanding. "You tried to protect her. As... as did I. It was wrong of both of us." Another pause, this one longer. "Eventually, I realized that she... she's surpassed me, Kakashi. She's the best kunoichi I've ever seen." Tsunade shook her head, a faint smile of pride on her face. "I taught her Kuchiyose no Jutsu. She can now summon Katsuyu." She looked up to the amazed jounin. "Her medic skills are exceptional." She hesitated, but then leaned back in her chair, nodding confidently. "Hai. She was ready."

Kakashi smiled, standing. "Arigato. That's all I came for."

He began to walk out, but was stopped by Tsunade. "Kakashi! Matte."

"Hai?"

The Godaime Hokage smiled slightly at him. "Don't worry. She loves you like a father... she said as much to me."

Kakashi looked slightly shocked, but slowly, his visible eye crinkled in a warm, relieved smile. "I'm glad for it, Tsunade-sama. Very glad."


	3. Falling Angels

**Choice: **

**A Terrible Splendor**

---

Author's Note: Just had to say sorry for taking so long with this chapter. It was a bit hard, but I've got the general plot down now!

---

_III: Falling Angels_

"The village of the sun is a major tourist attraction," Neji read out loud, "and one of the most beautiful places in the Fire Country. A definite must-see." He looked at the pamphlet he held with disgust. "This doesn't tell us anything."

"Neither have the past five, Neji," Sakura replied irritably, shoving said booklets into her pack. "Shikamaru-san, you couldn't find any better information?"

The lazy jounin sighed, scratching the back of his neck as they walked down the sunlit path to the city. "You didn't exactly tell me what you wanted, did you? 'Get brochures about our first stop at that store, Shikamaru-san' were your exact words." He stretched, squinting his dark eyes at the sun. "I can tell you the basics, if you want. I researched this place before we left."

Neji turned his lavender-tinted pearl eyes to the spiky-haired man with dull interest. "Go ahead."

"The Village of the Sun, at the border of Fire and Sound. Population: five thousand, six hundred and ninety-two. A moderately small city. Main income: tourism. Standard of living... eh, moderate, I'd say. No poverty, but no one's Hyuuga-or-Uchiha-rich." Ignoring Neji's glare and Sakura's giggle, he pressed on steadily. "Main god is, predictably, Ama-Terasu, the sun goddess. Big rice producing-city. Anything else you want to know?"

How the Nara boy had managed to both research and memorize all this information in the short period of time they'd had stupefied her, but Sakura brushed those musings away. She thought a moment, running a hand through rose locks of soft hair. "Mmm... life span in normal conditions?"

"Around seventy-eight years," Shikamaru answered, giving her a sideways glance. "Although since it's been hit by the disease, it's impossible to tell."

Neji clenched his jaw, the muscles in his face tightening as he paused. "We're here."

To their right, a small sign labeled the Village of the Sun. The banner in front of them stretched brightly above with shining red-and-yellow decorations, but beneath it laid a city. Just a city... normal buildings, normal homes with neat, trimmed gardens, and clean streets. There was a marketplace at the end of the main road. But it doesn't seem right somehow, Sakura thought with a frown.

Shikamaru stared, dark purple eyes wide. "Where is everybody?"

That's it, Sakura thought in agreement, wringing her hands anxiously. Nobody's outside... the stores are all closed. There's not any manmade noise at all. Heck, even the birds aren't chirping. Freaky, Inner Sakura said forcefully, and for once, Sakura agreed with her. "It's completely devoid of human life," she said, shivering slightly.

Neji frowned deeply, lines creasing his forehead. "Let's walk around and see if anyone's left," he said. "It doesn't seem like it was totally demolished... I mean, it'd be in ruins, right? Maybe it's just in quarantine."

The three elite ninja started walking down the city's main street, looking at the empty structures with a sort of detatched awe. Sakura peered into a window. Something moved its head... a dog? No, a person! "Guys, someone's in that house!" she cried, running to it. She pounded on the door with gloved fists, shouting. "Open up!"

The face at the window quickly moved away, but no one answered Sakura's knocks. The ANBU adjusted her mask and sighed, holding an explosive tag up to the window in threat. "Konohakagure ANBU! If you don't open the door, I'm opening it for you!"

There was a muffled shout and the sound of a couple footsteps before the door opened, revealing a woman wearing a dirty red yukata. Her dark hair fell in tangled, stringy clumps over her eyes, which had a more-than-half-crazed look in them. "What do you want?" she shrilled, looking from one blank mask to another. "Who are you?"

"We're-" Neji started, but was cut off by the woman's hysterical voice.

"You're here to infect me, too, aren't you?" she shrieked. "You're here to send me off like you did to everyone else. Keichi, my darli-- my sons! You-- it took my sons, too, oh, my boys... oh, my poor boys..."

Shikamaru gently pushed the woman back into the house and set her down on a comfortable-looking chair, leaving her to put her head in her hands. Sakura closed the door behind them, and the shinobi all sat down on a futon across from the devastated woman. "Ma'am, we're not here to infect you. We're here to stop the disease."

"To st-" The woman frowned. "You want to help us?"

Sakura nodded earnestly. "Will you tell us about how the epidemic started?"

The woman looked rather lost for a moment, but nodded. "H-hai. I can." She bit her lip. "About a week and a half ago, a bunch of travelers came through the town. Once had a thing on his neck that looked like three commas. I thought- we all thought- that it was a tattoo, like yours." She pointed to their red ANBU swirls, slightly calmer now.

"Hai? What next?" Shikamaru frowned at the obvious mention of the curse seal, lacing his fingers together in thought.

"Well, he... he suddenly bit my husband, my Keichi." Her lip trembled, and her eyes were suddenly downcast. "Then the tattoo appeared on his neck, too, and that day he started biting our children. One each day. By then, we'd locked ourselves in. Everyone had the disease. Men, women, children... my boys!" She burst out sobbing, clutching at her hair, her clothing. "My boys are gone!"

Neji put a hand on the arm of the futon, clenching it tightly. "Relax. Please, keep calm. We need you to tell us this. Why weren't you infected?"

"He died," she said hollowly, an echo in her voice. "Died before he could bite me, on the third day. Sunset. Screaming with fever, vomiting, shaking." She shook her head, shaking herself. "He wasted away. On the third day, he had absolutely no energy."

Sakura looked at the woman, at her filthy surroundings, and came to a descision. A medic's descision. "Guys, clean up this mess here. Please, ma'am, come with me. We'll get you cleaned up."

Sakura bathed the woman and dressed her in a clean white yukata. She brushed her hair tenderly and talked to her like she would a child, asking her name and age, her favorite color, and so on. "There we are," the pink-haired jounin cooed, heping Michiko walk down the stairs.

Halfway down, Michiko grabbed Sakura's arm, staring at her with amber, intense eyes. She had once been quite beautiful, Sakura realized with a pang of sadness. Gone to seed by madness and guilt and sorrow and rage.

"I know you think I'm mad," Michiko said wobbily, "and I probably am. But please, find who did this and avenge my husband and children." Suddenly weak, Michiko leaned against Sakura. "I may be mad, but I feel perfectly sane. It's just a mad world. May I see your face, please? Let me see your face. The face of my savior." Sakura trembled slightly before lifting her mask, watching as Michiko's eyes closed slowly with a smile. "You..." the woman slumped. "I trust you," was all she said before fainting.

Sakura caught her quickly and pushed her mask back down to hide the tears growing in her eyes. Downstairs, Neji and Shikamaru put Michiko down on the now-clean futon and looked at Sakura. "What did she say?"

Sakura smiled beneath her mask, tears pricking her eyelashes. "Nothing," she answered, walking out the door. "Girl talk."

---

Sakura pushed the doors open and strode briskly to the desk, a determined expression on her hidden face. The hospital clerk looked up in surprised fear at her hitai-ate. "May I help you, miss?"

The masked girl adjusted her gloves. "I'm a medic-nin."

The man looked nonplussed.

"A medic-nin. A medical ninja?" She sighed, shaking her head. "I'm here to research and treat the unnamed disease here in the name and respect of Konohakagure."

"Ah, the Hidden Village? We are honored." The man bowed. "Domo arigato. Please- the whole left wing is dedicated to disease victims."

Sakura thanked the man and walked down the white halls of the hospital, going over the symptoms in her head to try and calm down. But now matter how calm her masked face looked, inside she was quaking. Hundreds of patients, newborns and grandmothers, men and women, the poor and the rich, shouting and screaming and crammed into thirty large rooms. Vomiting, shaking violently with fever. The curse seal was on all of their necks, pulsing like a live thing.

Sakura washed her hands and got to work.

---

Five long hours later, Sakura staggered towards a bench occupied by Shikamaru and Neji- their designated meeting place. "Sakura?" Neji asked, looking at her with concern.

"No, the tooth fairy," Sakura snapped before falling. Shikamaru caught her gently and Neji got up, letting her take his place on the bench. "Rough day?" he asked.

"You have no idea," Sakura groaned, leaning back. She took off her mask, revealing tearstained cheeks. "It was horrible. Everyone was screaming or throwing up or calling for help or both or all three at once. It's so much worse than what Tsunade-shishou told us. It's like alh."

"What did you do for them?" Shikamaru asked, trying to ingore his rapidly-beating heart as she leaned agains him.

Sakura was quiet for a moment. "Everything I could," she answered finally, "which wasn't much." She shook her head on Shikamaru's shoulder, stretching her legs out. "I cooled the fever, but it came back. I calmed their stomachs, but they threw up anyway. And that genjutsu... it's terrible. It made me feel like I was dying, just hearing them and watching their faces. Kai didn't work. I even slapped them and bled them a little in hopes that pain would bring them out of it, like most with most genjutsu, but nothing worked." Sakura paused. "I did a general analasys on a couple patients. One in day one, one in day two, and one in day three. Something came up odd."

"Odd?" Neji looked at her. "In what way? What was it?"

"Their chakra levels." Sakura kneaded her forehead with the heels of her palms. "They were normal."

Her teammates looked at her. "How is that odd?" Shikamaru asked. "Isn't that a good thing?"

Sakura scowled. "Normally, hai, it is. But the curse seal- the one Sasuke has and stuff- feeds off of chakra; that's why it's so dangerous, especially for a strong nin like Sasuke or someone. If you're extremely strong, you'll survive, but with only a minimal amount of chakra left. You'll go into chakra depletion."

"So..." Neji gestured for her to go on, ignoring the stray strand of sepia hair blowing in his eyes.

She rubbed her arms, not because of the cold, but because she was scared. "So, it's not a regular curse seal. It doens't feed off of chakra, obviously, but it's still getting stronger by the day, strong enough to create the most horrible genjutsu I've ever seen. So, it has to get its energy from somewhere. The problem is, nobody can tell where that somewhere is." She opened her pack and took out a rice ball.

Shikamaru tugged on an earring, a nervous habit. "How hard can it be to figure out?" he asked, frowning. "Just take a scan of the body. If something's wrong, you'll see it."

Sakura shook her head. "Tried that. It's outside of the body or something... I mean, except for the disease, nothing is wrong, and the illness thrives on." She bit into the rice and offered food to her companions. Swallowing, she continued. "At least we know how it's spread now. I mean, that's a start, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Neji accepted some dried fish and sat next to them on the arm of the bench. "After the victim is bitten, the seal appears, right?"

Shikamaru nodded in time with Sakura. "Hai. So it starts everything, that seal."

Sakura frowned at her dinner, rolling some sticky rice between her fingers. "It's the key to figuring this thing out, I know it. I just wish I knew how."

Neji chewed thoughfully for a moment before swallowing hard. "I think," he said, "we've found everything we can here. Time to move on."

"Move on? Where?" Sakura asked, startled. The rolled rice dropped from her fingers. "No, we can't! I haven't done a thorough enough analasys... and those people need me!"

"Sakura-san, please remember that our main goal is to stop the disease from spreading any further," Shikamaru said with a sigh. "The best way to do that is to trace its source... we have to leave the city to do that. Neji-san and I found out that the band of travelers came from a city a couple hours' journey from here, supposedly contaminated."

Sakura paused, looking at the half-eaten rice ball. "The source... you mean Orochimaru."

Shikamaru hesitated. "Hai."

She turned her head to him, chuckling wearily. "Talk about going out of the frying pan and into the fire."

Neji tilted his head to the sliver of moon in the sky, breathing in deeply. "Hai. But it's our only tactic at the moment. The only way to get this done."

"So we're just going to burst into Orochimaru's hideout and ask him to stop the disease from spreading?" Sakura asked incredulously, frustration edging into her voice.

"Sakura, you're not thinking," Neji frowned. "We're going to wander around the border, looking for the source of infection. Orochimaru most likely wouldn't infect himself, would he?"

"But the infected would be dead already," Sakura persisted, swallowing the rest of her rice ball.

"Hai. But that would give you a chance to examine the post-death body... anything you find could be our key to a cure, and even Orochimaru."

Sakura didn't say anything anymore, but turned her own head to the silver light of the moon, trying to calm herself down.

Neji looked at her from the corner of his eye and let out a slow breath. "Set up camp there," he instructed, pointing to a gathering of trees not too far away. "We'll leave early tomorrow."

---

Shikamaru looked silently at the sleeping female next to him, blinking slightly. He'd been on watch for the past hour, letting a reluctant Neji go to sleep next to their pink-haired female, who hand't done a watch. After seeing and sensing her obvious exhaustion, the two had insisted that she get a full night's sleep for the day ahead.

It was for her health that he was staring at her, really. He was merely making sure she was sleeping soundly. Right.

Her pastel hair swept over her cheeks like it was blown by a light breeze, and her lids were closed, hiding those jade-and-gold eyes that had seen so much. Without those eyes open, she looked angelic. Pure. Innocent. But Shikamaru knew that those eyes, when open, expressed that she'd seen more than in innocent would have. They showed her fire, her spirit greater than any angel's. They were out of place, but at the same time made her seem more real.

_A fallen angel_, he thought absently, reaching out to brush her hair away from her eyes. He stopped his eyes widened. _What am I doing?_ He retracted his hand a bit, but then tucked the spray of pink hair behind her ear anyway, ignoring the nagging voice at the back of his head that was uttering things he most certainly didn't want to hear. Sighing at his lack of will power and self-restraint, he put his chin on his hand in the typical 'Shikamaru-thinking-pose'.

"You've certainly fallen hard," a voice sounded out from behind him.

Shikamaru jumped, turning to face a highly-amused-looking Neji. "I thought you were asleep."

"Hn." The white-eyed man shook his head. "I never knew, Nara." Neji smirked as he leaned against a tree, shaking his head. "Really, you hide it quite well."

"Hide what?" Shikamaru asked defensively. "I haven't fallen, hard or otherwise." He glared at the sepia-haired man. "Don't give me that smirk."

Neji rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say, Shikamaru-san. I-" He suddenly whirled around. "Byakugan!"

Shikamaru sprang to attention, grabbing a kunai from his pouch and preparing to throw.

"Wait!" Neji called. "It's- there's no heartbeat."

The lazy man next to him pushed back the bushes. His eyes widened. "It's a corpse," he whispered harshly.

Neji cast a glance at the sleeping Sakura and helped Shikamaru pull the dead body from the bushes. It was the body of a little girl, with pretty black hair and vacant hazel eyes, glazed over and unseeing. She was wearing a torn gray yukata and her fists were loosely clenched. Neji closed the girl's eyes with a low breath and looked on her neck.

The curse seal pulsed slowly, as if dying itself.

Shikamaru frowned. "Look," he said, pointing to the girl's hand. "She has something." He took a crumpled piece of paper from the girl's fist and smoothed it out.

And gasped.

It was a crudely-drawn picture of the curse seal. Next to it was a pressed cherry blossom flower, and a drawing of a kunai.

"It's for Sakura," Neji said hoarsely.

"What?" Sakura blearily opened her eyes at the sound of her name. "What is it?"

"N-nothing," Shikamaru said hastily.

Sakura got out of her blankets, stumbling towards them. She put a hand over her mouth in shock and horror at the girl, all weariness forgotten. "What's that?" she asked, pointing to the scrap of paper in Shikamaru's palm.

He quickly put it in his vest pocket, shooting a glace towards Neji. "Nothing," he repeated, this time with more conviction. "Nothing important."

Sakura looked him square in the eye. "You wouldn't lie to me." It was a statement, not a question.

Shikamaru was silent, and when Sakura looked at Neji, she got the same treatment.

Ignoring them, she picked up the girl. "Go to sleep," she said quietly. "I'll take care of her. She's only died recently, and I won't do an investigation on a child."

"You need your rest, Sak-" Neji started.

"No," Sakura interrupted fiercely, glaring at them. "I wouldn't be able to sleep after this, anyway." She waited for them to lie down before going a little farther in.

She dug in silence for a long time, using a bit of chakra to dig a deep hole. She gently set the child in it and covered it back in, kneeling before the makeshift grave and letting her hair fall over her face. Her eyes brimmed. _No more tears_, she insisted forcefully to herself, scrubbing her eyes. _No more tears. I'm not free to cry yet_. She looked at the small lump in the ground and exhaled through her teeth. "May your spirit rest in peace," she whispered. Looking around, she spotted a rather sturdy-looking dead tree. Shuffling towards it, she grabbed a thick slab of wood and pulled. With her 'monstrous strength', as Naruto liked to call it, pulling it off of the tree was easy. She took a kunai from her pouch and carved.

'Name unknown. Age unknown-- around 5-6. Disease victim.' On a sudden whim, she carved something else, feverishly, needily. 'Gomen nasai to the parents of this child, if they still live. Gomen. I couldn't help her.' Sticking the slab of wood at the top of the mound, Sakura still didn't let herself cry. Instead, there were hacking breaths, dry sobs that shook her whole body. Wasn't she supposed to be able to help people? Wasn't she supposed to be a medic?

That was what had always gotten her mad and depressed-- not being able to help. Not being able to do anything to assist the ones she loved. And now, when she had the power-- the ability-- she still couldn't do anything.

**_Crying won't do anything, idiot_**, Inner Sakura screamed, for once sounding slightly compassionate. **_Get up off your butt and do something. Look at the note Shikamaru hid from you. Get yourself up and going. While you're crying, ten more children are dying._**

Sakura nodded to herself, standing up unevenly and ungracefully slumping back to the camp. Sighing silently, she knelt once more, this time over Shikamaru. Admiring his sleeping face (_what the HELL am I doing that for?_) for a moment, she leaned over and gently slid the piece of paper from his pocket. She opened it.

And nearly fell over.

There was no doubt that this little threatening note had been meant for her. She glanced at her two teammates. Why hadn't they given it to her? She was a jounin, after all. She could handle it. She _was_ handling it, damn it.

_There's going to be a long talk with them tomorrow morning_, she thought furiously, stuffing the note in her pocket.

But for now, sighing, she tilted her head to the stars, taking comfort in their soft light.


	4. Gravity

**Choice:**

**A Terrible Splendor**

---

Author's Note: I didn't really get as many reviews as I'd hoped last chapter, but I'm glad that the ones I did were all positive. Thanks for reading! I know a lot of people don't read it just because the pairing is kind of odd... but I think it's so cute, don't you? In any case, thanks for reading, and in some cases, reviewing.

---

_Act IV: Gravity_

---

Shikamaru's first sight in waking up the sun.

He growled slightly, shading his eyes from the bright glare, and sat up, ignoring the stirring Neji next to him. _Wait... where's Sakura?_ He looked around frantically, clenching his fists, and let out a relieved breath when he saw her sitting quietly beside her already-packed bag. "Morning," she said nonchalantly.

"Morning." He eyed her, frowning. What was with her unemotional greeting? And the way she was sitting, with her knees drawn to her chest and her face blankly at the sky. She looked like... damn it, she looked like Neji in one of his worse moods... the moods where he went fuming about fate to himself. His eyes traced down her arms, which were rigidly set, to her fists, and the piece of paper that was crumpled in it. A kunai was next to her.

Shikamaru's eyes widened as he felt in his vest pocket. Nothing. _Uh oh._

"Shikamaru-san." Her fist unclenched, and the smashed paper was resting lightly in her palm. "Why didn't you tell me?"

The strategist noted with a small bit of fright that her jaw muscles were clenched. "We were looking out for you," he murmured.

"We? So Neji thought I couldn't handle it, too?"

"We thought it would scare you."

She clenched the paper again, self-control slipping away slowly. "It did," she said. "It sent a stream of fucking shivers down my spine. But I'm okay. I handled it." She glared at him suddenly, pink hair whipping to her face. She brushed it away angrily. "I _can_ do that, you know. Handle things."

He let out a low breath. "I know. We were just trying to protect you." As soon as the words left his mouth, he wished he could swallow them back up.

She let out a roar of suppressed rage and threw the paper at him. It bounced off his forehead as she turned on him, walking towards him and crouching down, grasping the collar of his jounin vest. "I don't _need_ protection, damn it! I did when I was twelve! Not anymore! I can handle myself!"

Shikamaru was slightly unnerved. Frowning deeper, he grabbed her wrists. "Sakura, calm down. It was bad judgement. I apologize. We know you can take care of yourself."

"Damn right it was bad judgement!" she said, suddenly tackling him into a hug. She dry-sobbed into his shoulder, fighting the tears that threatened.

Even more unnerved (but also slightly relieved that she wasn't trying to kill him anymore), Shikamaru hugged her back, a small pink tint skirting across his cheeks. "I'm sorry."

"It's the name isn't it?" she asked, her voice muffled by his shoulder. "Haruno Sakura. Spring cherry blossom. It makes me feel so damned delicate."

Shikamaru sighed as she pushed back, feeling slightly better when he saw that she was blushing, too. "You're not delicate. You just tackled me."

Sakura laughed weakly, sitting back and looking at the ground, blinking rapidly. "Aa. I guess that's right." She paused. "Gomen... I overreacted."

"No kidding," he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Nani?"

"Ano... never mind." He turned to Neji, who was smirking knowingly at the fading blush across his cheeks. Glaring at the pale-eyed teen, Shikamaru got up languidly, stretching his arms. Neji followed, and then Sakura, who stopped blinking, confident that the tears wouldn't come. "We should get going."

Neji nodded, the smirk he'd had on his mouth now going to his eyes as he resumed his usual blank facial feature. "Aa. Sakura, are you ready?"

"I've been," she answered promptly, slinging her bag over her shoulder and pushing her mask down. "Where are we going, again?"

"Dragon City," Neji replied, tying his long hair back and slipping a kunai into his pouch. "It's not that big of a tourist place, like this, but it's not horrible. Rumor has it that it was one of the first cities to be hit." Nodding at them, he shot into the trees, with Shikamaru and Sakura close on his heels. "Sakura."

"Hai?" She sped up slightly so that she was next to him.

"I want you to be careful."

The pink-haired girl scowled fiercely, turning her head to him. "Is this another 'we-want-to-protect-you thing? Because I'm pretty sure you heard me rant about that earlier."

"Oh, I did, don't worry." He smiled slightly, facing her. "But this isn't about that. This is about Orochimaru."

Sakura looked impassive. "Go on."

He frowned at her. "The closer we get to the disease, the closer we get to him. And though it'd be great to capture him or kill him, we have to remember that the reason we're even tracing him to the disease (besides the curse seal) is the fact that he contacted us with instructions to bring you specifically. That means... he's got some type of plan for you." Neji looked away from her, staring at the cluster of trees ahead. "Whether it's something minor like making fun of you for Uchiha leaving or something huge like having you become his next vessel, it will probably end in you being seriously hurt or seriously... well..."

"Dead." She looked away, as well, fiddling with the straps of her mask.

"Aa." Neji looked uncomfortable. "All I-- we-- all we're asking is that you be extremely cautious... wary, even. Suspect everything."

"That's not like me, Neji, and you know it," Sakura said from beneath her mask, licking her lips. They were suddenly very dry.

"I know I know it," he answered, "and so does Shikamaru. But we... we just don't want any casualties."

Sakura lifted her mask and looked at him intensely, green-gold eyes shining into his own hidden light lavender. "There won't be any," she said, determination emanating from her face. Smiling cheekily and pushing her mask back down, she fell behind again, matching Shikamaru step for step. "There won't be any." She repeated it to herself, as if to reassure herself that it was true.

_I won't let there be._

---

Tsunade surveyed the two boys in front of her, rolling her lips together in a gesture of anxiousness. "You two wanted to see me?" The two clashed, that was all she could think. One was dark, the other light. One was cold, the other warm. Next to each other, they looked incredibly different, but also incredibly alike. All they needed was a pink-haired girl to complete them.

Finally, Tsunade saw the magic of Team Seven. They weren't three people with a jounin instructor- they were one person. One family. And two members of that one family were sitting in front of her, fists clenched, jaws stiff.

The darker one nodded. "Hai, Godaime-sama. We have a mission request."

The Hokage folded her hands to control the fingers that were urging to twirl her hair, a new nervous habit. "A request. That's unusual."

"It's about Sakura-chan," the golden one said quickly, his face shining with the boyish anxiousness that seemed slightly out of place on his late-teenage face.

Tsunade thought she knew what was coming, but told them to "go on" anyway.

The dark one ran a hand through his hair, making it spikier than normal. "Kakashi-sensei told us not to come, but we felt like we had to. Godaime-sama..."

For once, the boy hesitated.

Naruto took over. "We want to go after Sakura-chan."

Silence.

Tsunade sighed low, her fingers tightening. "Do you know," she asked after a while, "why I chose your Sakura-chan to go on this mission?"

"She's not just our Sakura-chan, Tsunade-baa-chan." Naruto spoke seriously for once, his face set. "She's yours, too."

Tsunade's face constricted, like she was about to cry. But Hokages didn't cry. Instead, she cleared her throat, red-painted nails tapping the desk. "I know. All right. Our Sakura-chan. Do you know why I chose her?"

"Because she's the best in her field," Sasuke answered promptly, "and more than that. She's... she's better than me in some aspects."

"And me," Naruto chirped.

"That's not hard," Sasuke scoffed, need for something normal resulting in the most timeless thing he could think of: insults.

"You basta-"

"Aa," Tsunade said loudly, cutting off their argument before it could start, "because she's the best. That should be all the answer you need. She'll be fine."

Sasuke frowned, a dangerous sign. "It's Orochimaru."

"Hai, it is."

Naruto watched his friend carefully. "Tsunade-baa-chan, we mean... well... it's _Orochimaru_."

Tsunade turned her back to them, nails making crescent shapes in her palm as she squeezed her fists. "Don't you think I know that?" she snapped, her voice coming out harsher than she intended.

Sasuke's voice sounded incredulous and furious all at the same time. "She could die!"

Tsunade didn't trust her voice to say anything.

Suddenly, there was a crash, and Tsunade turned to see her desk in half. Sasuke's Sharingan was activated, and Naruto was standing, running to hold his friend back from physically harming the Godaime. "SAY SOMETHING!" Sasuke shouted, the look on his face pure rage. "SAY THAT YOU'RE SORRY, SAY THAT WE CAN GO TO PROTECT HER!"

Tsunade stood, fists clenched. "Shut your mouth, Uchiha!" she shouted back. "I made a descision! _She_ made a desicision! You think I didn't try and stop her!"

"OBVIOUSLY NOT HARD ENOUGH!" he roared. Naruto was physically restraining him now. "SHE'S STILL OUT THERE!"

"Sasuke!" Naruto shouted. "Stop!"

Tsunade felt fury heating her blood, felt it boiling over and coating her bones, seeping into her muscles, burning her brain.

"SHE SAVED ME!" he roared, Sharingan spinning. Naruto, shocked at this, released him, backing into the wall. "SHE'S LIKE... LIKE A SISTER! I LOVE HER!"

It was then that Tsunade slapped him.

It was quick and meaningful. She just stepped forward and smacked him across the face. His Sharingan dulled, and he stared at her, a hand going up to touch the bruise on his cheek.

Tsunade glared at him. "She's a daughter to me," she hissed, "as she's a sister to you. I love her, too. And it killed me to let her go. But mothers have to let their daughters go, sometime, don't they? And brothers, too. Brothers have to let their sisters go sometime, too." She was breathing hard, staring him down. "Your request is denied. I have faith in my daughter. And you... you should have faith in your sister." She breathed a couple times, then lowered her hand. "Get out of my office. Both of you. Now."

Naruto quickly escorted the stunned Sasuke out of the room, leaving Tsunade staring at the splintered desk in front of her. Shizune came running in, a kunai in her hand, Tonton squealing. "What happened? Tsunade-sama! Are you hurt?"

The Hokage looked at her. "Shizune, leave."

"Nani?"

"_Leave_, Shizune, I said to fucking leave." The Godaime watched as her assistant exited the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

Finally, in private, she let herself cry.

For everything she'd ever lost, and everything she might lose now.

---

"Sakura-san," Shikamaru started, pushing up his mask as he turned his head to her.

"No."

He raised an eyebrow. "I haven't even said anything."

She laughed, reminding him of bells, as she loosened her mask, as well. "No, I didn't mean it like that. My name's not Sakura-_san_. Just call me Sakura."

Shikamaru sighed, murmuring a 'how troublesome' under his breath. "All right then. Sakura?"

She grinned brightly, stepping off a tree limb with grace. "Hai?"

"Do you have any ideas on how to prevent getting the disease?" At her questioning look, he sighed again. "The city we're going to is most likely extremely infected, and I know we know it's caused by biting, but could there be another outlet for the disease to leak through?"

Sakura frowned, grin disappearing. "Maybe. I really don't know, Shikamaru. I'd have to know more about the disease, and that knowledge is something I don't have. I'd suggest the usual stuff-- filtered breathing, no direct contact, washing your hands as much as possible. I know it sounds basic, but it's all I know right now."

He nodded. "Arigato."

"No problem," she said breezily. "How far are we?"

"Not very," he answered. "Neji!"

"Aa?" came the answer from up front. The Hyuuga slowed down slightly so he could talk without yelling. "Nani?"

"How far are we?" Sakura repeated.

Neji frowned beneath his mask. "Probably another fifteen minutes. But be prepared. I meant to tell you... this place might not be as happy as the last one."

"But the last village wasn't happy at all," Sakura said. "It was really creepy."

Neji looked at her. "Hai."

"...oh." Biting her lip, she fiddled with her hair, putting it into a ponytail for something to do, and continued, trying not to think of what would greet them at Dragon City.

She didn't have long to think.

She stopped short so suddenly that Shikamaru nearly ran into her, doing a mad misstep to avoid her and veering slightly off course. He came back, though, and took a look at her gaping face before turning to the city. His mouth opened slightly.

When Neji landed, he took a glance at the city before slowly taking his mask off, pearl eyes wide.

"_Shit_."

Sakura couldn't agree more.

The city was a complete and utter ruin. Buildings were worn and cut to the point of destruction. It looked like weapons were taken to most of the houses, and everything seemed waterlogged. Mold and mildew crept along the sides of buildings, and gardens sprung with weeds and vines. The streets were practically all mud and gravel, sharp rocks and bits of glass littering the ground. Gray clouds loomed threateningly over them, and a fine mist was spraying from the sky. Water slid from roofs onto porches, they noted as they started walking in, and the marketplace was decimated. Everything was empty.

Sakura shook her head in amazement and went ahead. She turned a corner and shrieked, the sound echoing throughout the town, a sound of panic and fear shrilling in their ears. Neji and Shikamaru ran to her, concerned, and stopped short at what they saw.

It was a field.

With bodies.

Apparently, it was some sort of makeshift hospital and cemetery. Hundreds of mounds covered the ground, with bits of stone marking them as graves. More unburied bodies were strewn about the homemade graves, even on top of and half inside them. The corpses' heads lolled back, eyes rolled back and unseeing. The skin was gray. On the other half of the field, shrieks and shudders told them that this was the hospital part. Masses of people, some dead and some dying and some in the first stages of the sickness, were separated into rows, where ragged-looking doctors patrolled, spreading salves, sponging necks, and trying unsuccessfully to fight the disease.

They'd all looked up at Sakura's scream, and now one came towards her, the leader of the doctors. It was a man who looked extremely exhausted. His white doctor's coat was now gray and brown from dirt and vomit and Kami-knew-what-else. His hair had once been blonde, but was now muddy brown. Everything was dull. He adjusted the mask around his mouth to filter the air and looked at the three jounin with desperation. "You're Konohakagure ninja, aren't you?" He looked near to crying as he looked at Neji's hitai-ate. "Oh, thank Kami. You're here to help, aren't you? Please say you are..."

"We are," Neji replied softly, "don't worry. God. This place..."

"It's horrible, but it's the best we could do," the doctor said pitifully. "The hospitals are all destroyed or filled. The patients actually started biting the walls, taking weapons to them in their madness. They all become mad after a while."

Sakura nodded, pushing down her mask. "Tell us about how it started."

The doctor nodded. "A man came by around three weeks ago with a bunch of ninja. They were Sound ninja, I think. The man- their leader- looked almost like a serpent. He came in, took a man, and bit him on the neck. A sign appeared, and-"

"We know what happens," Shikamaru interrupted. "Where's the man that was first bitten?"

"I'll take you to his grave," the doctor said. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm a medic-nin," Sakura answered. "I'm going to analyze him. Examine him. Take notes. Hopefully we'll be able to help the living with the information I'll get from him, if I get any." She dug in her pack and took out a journal, handing it to the doctor. "These are my notes on the disease so far. Please go over them and share them with the other doctors."

Neji looked at him. "Are there any unaffected people?"

"Hai, in the Youth Center over there," he said, pointing to a building behind them as they trudged through the cemetery. Sakura avoided stepping on a corpse's head, feeling bile well up in her throat. "But sometimes at night, when we can't see them, a patient goes into the building and bites someone else. It's like they have a need to spread the disease to other people. Here's the grave."

Shikamaru knelt by the mound of dirt, laying a kind eye on the doctor. "Sir-"

"Oh, excuse me. My name is Satoru."

"Dr. Satoru," Shikamaru corrected himself. "If you'd leave, please? We'd like to conduct this in private."

Neji nodded. "Sakura will give you the reports later."

Satoru nodded, bowing slightly. "I'm just so glad you came to help. Domo arigato." He walked quickly away, weaving between bodies and graves to get back to his patients.

Sakura put her hands on the mound of earth and concentrated her chakra. The world blackened as she closed her eyes, and she felt her senses go deeper. Through the earth and stones, towards the body resting there. "He's seven point three feet underneath the ground," she murmured. "Deeper than the rest. The others were dug in more of a hurry... some are only two feet below." She opened her eyes, withdrawing her hands. "The rains probably churned up some graves," she whispered, horrified. "That's why there are so many unburied people."

Neji turned his head to the cloudy sky and nodded. "Sakura, can you use a jutsu?"

The pink-haired girl nodded, making handsigns and muttering under her breath. Piles of dirt removed themselves from the grave, landing a few feet away. When the body was almost fully unearthed, she stopped the jutsu. "Help me." She and Neji focused their chakra to their hands and pushed, making the earth suck into itself while Shikamaru held the corpse, looking supremely disgusted.

Sakura took one look at the corpse and turned away, fighting the urge to throw up. The skin was horribly bloated, and the body had started to undergo change already. She took a couple deep breaths and turned back to the body. "I'd like to do this on my own," she whispered.

Neji and Shikamaru nodded. "We're going to re-bury these bodies and talk with some of the officials," Neji said. "Call if you need us."

Sakura nodded her thanks and looked at the sky as Neji had done, trying to calm herself. Her analasys wouldn't work correctly if she was frazzled and nervous. After a few moments, she looked back down, slightly more relaxed. She took protective gloves from her pocket and strapped them on, placing a gloved finger on the corpse's arm and fighting a wave of revulsion.

Chakra tingled from her center, traveling down her arm, sparking across her bones. It delved into her wrist, then spread into her index finger, then finally burst from the tip, into the body. Sakura sat into a more comfortable position and breathed in deeply and evenly, feeling her chakra race through the body, spreading her senses wide. She could hear the silence of the hearbeat and feel the abscence of the usual rush of blood. She tasted the rotted air beneath her mask and smelled the decay, the terrifying smell of death and disease. Was there no clean oxygen?

_Ignore that. Focus on the body._

Everything was normal for a dead body. There were no injuries. She started at the feet and traveled up, searching for something out of place.

The neck.

She frowned, searching with chakra hands through the neck, looking with chakra eyes at the various signs. Finally, she saw it. Three comma-like dots. The curse seal. It was dead now, but she focused on it anyway, feeling a rush of information go through her mind, trying to stabilize itself.

_It's not feeding on chakra,_ she remembered, _so it makes sense that I can't feel any leftover chakra here. But what is that leftover? Something... something horrible. Something... oh, Kami-sama, what is it, it makes me want to puke... it's pulsing and disgusting. Not chakra... not even bacteria._ She almost broke contact in shock. _That's right! There's no bacteria in the body, or any viruses! It's completely healthy, except for this thing... but it's not bacteria or viral either. So what is this disease made out of? What is this thi-_

"AAAAH!" A searing pain shot up her finger, up her arm and into her center, connecting to her brain as she screamed in agony. She withdrew her finger quickly, pushing up her mask and scooting away from the body as fast as she could. Neji and Shikamaru were running towards her; she saw them from the corner of her eye.

"Sakura!" Shikamaru shouted. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

She was panting. She felt her heart: racing like mad. Doing a quick check for anything wrong with her, she shook her head in bemusement. "Everything's fine. I just... I was doing the check..." She took a deep breath. "Something was horrible... horribly wrong. The curse seal has something living in it." She frowned. "No, living isn't the right word. Maybe... fighting. The curse seal has something fighting in it, something fighting. It's so horrible... and when I tried to see what it was, I got a horrible jolt of pain."

Shikamaru knelt by her, putting his hands on her shoulders and kneading the muscle next to her shoulder blades with his thumbs. "Are you sure you're okay? You want to take a rest?"

Sakura looked at him, slightly surprised at this outburst of concern. "Ano... I'm fine. The pain's gone now."

"Don't try again any time too soon," Neji said suddenly, eyebrows turned down over Byakugan eyes. "Your energy just took a major decrease."

Shikamaru tugged on his earring. "Rest up a bit, Sakura. Eat something, go get some fresh air, drink some good water. We'll be okay here."

"Actually, Shikamaru," Neji said, a small hint of amusement in his white eyes, "you should probably go with her. You know... just in case."

Sakura nodded unknowingly as Shikamaru blushed furiously. "That sounds like a good idea." She stood with a small bit of effort and clutched at Neji's shirt, dizzy. "Ano... I got up too fast after that..."

"Hold onto Shikamaru if you get woozy," Neji advised, eyes sparkling. "I'll finish with these bodies."

Shikamaru cursed him roundly (inside his head) and put an arm over Sakura's shoulders, supporting her as they started off at an easy pace. Was it possible, he wondered, gazing at her troubled face, to hate a man and yet feel so completely grateful to him?

Yes, he decided soon after she gave him a reassuring smile, it was.


	5. Fits of Madness

**Choice:**

**A Terrible Splendor**

---

Author's Note: The last chapter was really kind of dark, so I apologize for that, but it was needed to further the plot. The whole story is kind of dark, anyway. But for your enjoyment (and mine) there will be a fair amount of fluff in this next chapter, especially at the beginning. Later, though, it'll get dark and dangerous again.

---

_Act V: Fits of Madness_

---

They walked in silence while they trod through the cemetery, Sakura holding onto Shikamaru's arm for support and determinedly not looking at the graves below her, her eyes fixed on the gray, cloudy sky.

"Shikamaru."

The young strategist glanced at his companion, watching her hair blow in the wind. "Aa?"

"Are you afraid of dying?" she asked, biting her lip. At his silence, she took a quick look at him and blushed, ashamed. "Gomen. Don't answer."

He was quiet for a little more before answering anyway. "I'm a shinobi. I'm not supposed to be afraid of dying."

She looked at him from the corners of her eyes, jade orbs swiveling towards him, waiting for him to continue.

Sighing against his padded vest and finding the tactic of avoiding her questioning supremely futile, Shikamaru rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not a perfect shinobi, though. I've been faced with more than my fair share of life-threatening situations, you know that, and each time I've been so caught up in battle that I don't really think about whether or not I want to keep fighting." He paused, shifting his arm so that hers was around his shoulders and putting his other hand under her knees, picking her up bridal-style. Ignoring her surprise, he moved faster into the crowd of damp evergreens, continuing his answer. "But... hai. I think I am afraid of dying. Of leaving what I've learned, or who I've met. Especially now, at I guess what you would call a young age. I don't have anyone to pass on my knowledge to. I don't have a kid, or a young cousin or anything. No one would be around to continue my life when I'm not living it anymore. That's what scares me most."

Sakura sighed as they slowed to a stop. He sat her against a tree and knelt next to her. "Good."

"Good?"

"Aa, good. I was wondering if it was so very un-shinobilike to be afraid of something like death." She smiled dryly at him.

"I think I'd be a fool if I wasn't," he replied honestly, turning his head to the tops of the trees.

"And everyone knows you're not a fool, Shikamaru." She smiled slightly and grasped his hand with hers. He stiffened slightly, but relaxed at her touch, and closed his eyes lightly until she spoke again. "You know, I hated you back at the Academy."

His eyes flew open, and he looked at her with an expression of disbelief. That was purely Sakura, all right. A touch of compassion, a bit of a compliment, and the power of arousing a feeling of content and well-being in a man's chest, and then-- wham. A chakra-induced punch in the gut. "Nani?" His voice camed out harsher than he intended, cold and clipped.

"Kami-sama, Shikamaru, I don't hate you _now_." She rolled her eyes, making him feel like even more of an idiot. "I never knew you cared for my opinion that much."

So she wanted to play this game, eh? Fine. He'd join in.

"I don't. It's your exceptionally tactful way of saying it that entrances me."

"Entrances?" She smiled at him with an eyebrow raised. "I never knew I had that effect on you, Shikamaru."

Holy shit. Was she _flirting_ with him?

She leaned a bit closer and blinked at him innocently, jade eyes fringed with spiky dark lashes.

Yep. Definitely flirting.

_Might as well make the most of it_, he smirked inwardly. After all, they both definitely needed a little fun to take their minds off the shit they were in now, right? _Right._ He turned his head so his lips were next to her ear and whispered. "You have no idea."

He marveled in the shiver that visibly coursed down her spine.

Sakura flared after her moment of weakness, glaring at his neck as he bent over her ear. _Damn him._ She smiled slightly after a moment of thought, looking up at him. _Everybody has a weakness. Even geniuses._ She traced his jawline with an index finger, watching his eyes flicker towards her, then stubbornly away. "Really, Shika-kun? Well... I have a way how I can find out."

Shika-kun? What the hell was that? He fixed his eyes on her neck, but they disobeyed him (as they were suddenly continually doing whenever Sakura was around) and traveled down, down her creamy skin, past a funnily endearing mole on her throat, and down the stretched fabric of her shirt...

...and immediately back up as she actually _kissed_ his jaw. Right under his ear. Smack dab on his jawline. With lips and a silent, breathy sigh, and everything.

He was in shock.

And then suddenly her hands were beneath his vest and on his sides, fingers wriggling and teasing the skin beneath his shirt, and he snorted, completely ruining the magical moment he'd just encountered. Her slim digits explored his sides, and his snorts became full-blown laughter, shoulder-shaking and hearty, as he tried to stop her. Every grasp and snatch of a wrist was futile, however... she was quicker than she seemed.

Sakura was laughing, too, as he keeled over with his hands on her wrists, pulling her down with him. They laughed together, chests pressing against each others', until Sakura finished, laughing too hard to continue. And it was when he opened his eyes to brush a tear away that Shikamaru realized that once again they were in that compromising position. Sakura was on top of him, her lips _that-effing-close_ to his own, her chest skimming against his with every inhale and exhale. Their fingers had somehow gotten intertwined, and she was staring into his eyes (God, those eyes) with a reverence that seemed almost unworthy of him. Her pink hair surrounded them both like silken curtains.

"Shika... Shikamaru..." Why couldn't she say his name without practically tripping over it, for God's sake? Sakura mentally slapped herself. _Just roll off. Just roll off now.** Or we can take him right here and now...**_ Sakura couldn't roll off. (Actually, she felt more like following her other half's advice, but that just... wouldn't be right... right.)

Shikamaru loved the way she blushed when she said his name, her tongue lightly tracing her lips in an effort to moisten them. And he couldn't contain himself anymore.

He kissed her.

It was a light brush of the lips, barely even a kiss, just a too-quick sliding of his lips against hers. He was in awe at even that small contact... were her lips really that soft? She was staring at him, as if waiting for him. Waiting for something more, something more to tell her that the last kiss hadn't been an accident, hadn't been a dream.

Well, who was he to deny her an answer?

The second kiss was a little less graceful. They sat up together, moving as one, and he lightly stroked her neck, hesitating as he moved his face towards hers. They paused for a moment, breath mingling. Sakura looked at him. "Shikamaru... I..."

"Troublesome women," he breathed acussingly, blaming her but loving her. "I always knew they were trouble."

She giggled softly, and he caught her curved mouth in the second kiss. It was awkward, but sweet and close-mouthed, blushes staining their cheeks.

The third kiss was different.

When they broke apart, Shikamaru attacked with a vigor that totally annihilated his reputation of being lazy. Suddenly, they were a frenzy of lips and gasps. Sakura curved her arms around his neck. He wound his around her waist.

They broke apart again, panting heavier this time, and Sakura blushed. "Ano... that was..."

"Nice," he answered simply. "Troublesome woman... flower. Troublesome flower. But nice." His words came out in a jumble, but she seemed to know what he meant. That was the nice part. She would always know. There would be no confusion.

Sakura felt herself embracing him, but the only real sensation was his arms tightening in response. She was dimly aware of her happy smile, but what came into clear focus in her mind was his half-smirk, half-grin spread cheekily across his face. Was this what she wanted to feel, then, this unselfish attentiveness? All her needs seemed insignificant. He was the only person there. The only one for her. Shikamaru. Her genius. Her lazy genius.

Suddenly, the pressure on her increased, and she was smothered to the ground, Shikamaru looking alert and worried. A kunai whizzed past their heads, lodging inside the tree they had been resting on, right were Sakura's head would have been.

Sakura got up quickly, Shikamaru following her lead, and they drew their respective weapons, shuriken clutched tight in a ready hand. As their attacker came into the light, Sakura relaxed slightly. "Shikamaru, we can't hurt him. It's a patient."

The sick man ambled towards them, hardly able to walk. He was obviously a ninja, with his headband tied around his waist, but he was also very, very ill. He looked close to death already. "How did he get out of the hospital area?" Shikamaru asked, cursing under his breath.

"Neji's burying the washed-up bodies, remember? He must have snuck out. He's mad." Sakura approached him carefully. "Sir? Gomen, but we have to take you back to the hospital."

"N...no..." the man moaned. His voice was scratchy, reminiscent of sandpaper. "S...so much paaaaiiiiin..."

Sakura visibly shuddered as he drew out the word. "I know you're in pain, Sir, which is why we have to get you back. We have to make you healthy again."

He trudged forward, towards them. Shikamaru kept his weapon up. The man smirked slightly. "Affff... afraid?"

Sakura frowned, stepping in between them, kunai up. "Please, Sir, we just want to get you back safely." She felt a pit of worry gnawing at her stomach, all the good feeling from before curdling into a sour feeling inside of her.

And he was gone.

"Nani?" she whispered. "Shikamaru, be caref-"

"AAAAUUUGH!"

She spun around at the bloodcurdling cry, spun around frantically to see Shikamaru's neck being bitten hard by the ill man. It echoed in her mind. Was he still screaming? Her face paled. She threw the kunai. Hit the man in the heart, killed him. He was out of his misery now, at least.

Shikamaru. He collapsed onto the ground, holding his neck, blood sliding from his fingers, down his vest, down his shirt. His breathing was ragged. Sakura's feet carried her to him. She knelt before him, falling heavily on her knees, and felt her face contort in horror and worry and despair. "Shikamaru..."

"Sakura..." His eyes clouded. "Don't get near me..." He swayed dangerously. "Troublesome... troublesome flower..."

"Shik... Shikama... Sh..." She stared at his body, keeled over in a dead faint. Stared at the curse mark.

Shikamaru.

Bitten.

Diseased.

_Oh, God._

---

"NEJIIII!"

The cry caused him to look up from the ground immediately, his dark hair flying with the jerk of his head. He knew that voice... that was Sakura's voice. Filled with such despair, such hopelessness, such absolute anguish! "What the hell happened?"

The jounin ANBU raced into the forest, ignoring the workers' questioning looks, dashing in and out of trees, wishing that he had Rock Lee's extreme speed. Rustling echoed throughout the forest... an assassin? Someone from Sound to take down the team? Was someone hurt?

He molded his appendages into defensive formation, hands raising to the memorized height as the rustling grew louder. The person broke through, and he let out a sigh of relief. It was Sakura, carrying Shikamaru, who looked wholly unhurt. "What happened?"

Sakura looked up at him. Why was she so pale? Was it just him, or were her eyes a duller green than before? She shook her head.

"Sakura, what happened to Shikamaru-san?" His voice was demanding. Worry fogged his mind.

She shook her head again and gently turned Shikamaru's head, showing his neck from the shock of hair his ponytail provided.

The Curse Seal.

Neji gaped.

Sakura gently put Shikamaru into his waiting arms and cleared her throat, looking at the sky, Neji, the trees... anything but her new lover's unmoving body. "An ill shinobi came into the clearing we were in. We were... distracted, but Shikamaru pulled me down just before the kunai was thrown."

"He was enemy shinobi?" Neji asked, quietly. Still puzzled. Still gaping.

"No, Konoha. I think I've seen him around before. But Neji, he was mad, remember? He was in a stage of madness." She swallowed. "I didn't think he was a threat... he was ill, you know? But he was a shinobi. Even in madness, ninja can... can still hurt. Think of Gaara-san."

Neji nodded, not in understanding, but because he felt like she wanted him to understand anyway.

"He vanished. Must have used a replacement jutsu or something, I didn't check. But I told Shikamaru to be careful, and all of a sudden there's this--" She seemed to choke for a moment. "-- this horrible scream, and I turn around and throw the kunai at the man, and..." She shut her eyes, squeezed them shut to block out the memories. It didn't work.

"He was bitten." It was a statement, not a question; Neji saw no need for one, he knew the answer. Shikamaru was bitten. Shikamaru would be ill. Shikamaru would die.

Sakura nodded wearily. "I can't believe it."

Silence.

Neji shook his head after a long pause, pushing his mask up to hide his face. Sakura did the same, and he turned stiffly. "We have to get him to the hospital. We have to try and take care of him."

Sakura looked at Neji furiously, her face hidden by the ANBU mask. "In that stinking hell?"

"What other choice do we have, Sakura?" he asked angrily, turning on her again. "Just kill him right now?"

"Why not? He wouldn't have to go through the pain."

It was an empty answer, and she knew it. She wouldn't kill him, and she wouldn't let Neji kill him, either.

The Hyuuga prodigy shook his head with a sigh. "Come on. You can work on the dead body again, see if you can get anything from that curse seal."

Sakura nodded numbly, too tired, too shocked, too broken to even argue. "Hai."

They walked towards the graveyard/hospital with their precious cargo in Neji's hands, stepping slowly for the painful burden on their shoulders, the setting sun shining dully, hidden by clouds, from behind them.

Day four came to a close.

---

Naruto had no appetite.

After Sasuke's outburst, he had forcefully dragged his friend away from the Hokage's office and literally shoved him into his own apartment where he could keep an eye on him. Neither had slept for the whole night, and had gone through the entire next day in near silence, training hard and fast.

Naruto had broken the silence first with a quiet suggestion to go to Ichiraku. "I'm kinda hungry," he'd said without feeling.

Sasuke had nodded dully, and the two were now sitting in front of the ramen bar, ignoring the overly-cheerful owner in front of them.

Naruto lifted his chopsticks slowly, the noodles slipping from them and splashing back into his soup. Growling lazily, he dug for them again, only to let them slide back down. Giving it up as a bad job, he pushed the bowl away from him, looking over at Sasuke. His bowl was untouched, his chopsticks still unbroken. "Oi, Sasuke."

"Nani." His voice was cold and sharp.

"Maybe we should listen to Tsunade-baa-chan."

"..."

Naruto leaned against the counter, folding his arms across the wood. "She's the one that's been teaching Sakura-chan for the past, what... five years? Six years? She knows what she can do, and if she has trust in her, maybe we should... y'know... do the same."

"I have trust in her," Sasuke said icily, not looking at him. "It's Orochimaru I don't trust."

Naruto exhaled. "Me neither, teme, me neither. But Tsunade-baa-chan knows him, too."

Sasuke said nothing for a long time, but broke his chopsticks and rubbed them together slowly, more for something to do than actually to eat with them. "Shut up."

"Nani?" Naruto looked at him, his face twisting in anger.

"I said: shut up. I don't want to hear it."

"Damn it, teme, you're always like this. You'd rather be moody and brooding and getting attention for it than hopeful and sharing the fucking spotlight. What's your problem?" Naruto knew baiting his friend was extremely unwise, but his thoughts were elsewhere at the moment.

Sasuke glared at him. "Say that again."

Naruto leered back, clenching his fists, his cerulean eyes narrowing. "Okay. You'd rather be moody and brooding and getting a- OUCH!"

Sasuke had punched him in the face, his fist griding into Naruto's cheek. "I told you to shut up."

Naruto rubbed his cheek, grasping the counter for support. His eyes smoldered angrily. "And I told you to belive in Sakura-chan. So did Tsunade. Maybe it's time we did."

Sasuke said nothing, and Naruto took that as grudging agreement, so he smiled slightly and reached for his ramen. This time, he got the noodles, slurping in relief.

"So you're not going to go run after her or anything crazy like that?"

Sasuke looked at his ramen, stirring absently with a single chopstick.

"Don't you care about her? About what could happen?"

Naruto growled low in his throat at the accusation, his eyes narrowing again. "Are you crazy, teme? I've cared for her longer than you have, and probably more than you have, too. Don't talk to me about not caring about Sakura-chan when you were the one that pushed her away for a year." He stabbed at his ramen and sighed. "Look, Sasuke, we won't be able to help her or anyone else arguing like this. We have to stop."

Since when was Naruto a voice of reason? Sasuke frowned at his food and then at his teammate and friend. "Aa."

"You promise you won't run after her?"

Sasuke looked at the sky, where the darkness was slowly being pierced by light.

"Aa. But only if you don't, either."

Naruto smiled slightly and gave Sasuke a thumbs-up, reminiscent of so many promises made, so many promises that he had kept and tried to keep. He grinned cheekily. "That's a promise, teme."

---

Kabuto pushed up his glasses with his left index finger and exhaled from his teeth, feeling the breath come out in a hiss as he fingered the papers he held, reading over them carefully.

"Kabuto, you have the information I requested?"

Orochimaru's voice was metallic and slick like the snake he summoned, twisting this way and that, the toungue sliding between the teeth with every syllable. He sat otherwise silently on a set of steps, gazing out at the shadows of the dark room, his useless arms hanging by his sides.

The silver-haired medic bowed slightly and waved the forms in the air. "Hai. Would you like me to read them to you?"

"No. Lay them in front of me and leave."

Kabuto was slightly taken aback. What had he done to deserve this burst of malice and sarcasm? Frowning, he bowed again. "Hai, Orochimaru-sama." He put the papers on the floor and backed out of the room, pushing up his glasses again.

The Snake Sannin sighed lightly and looked at the papers, serpentine eyes scanning over them.

_Name: Haruno Sakura_

_Age: 17_

_Teachers: Godaime Hokage, Hatake Kakashi. Trains with Hyuuga Neji, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, Yamanaka Ino, Hyuuga Hinata, Rock Lee. Corresponds with Kazekage and siblings._

_Techniques: Mystical Palm Technique, Poison Extraction Technique, Sakura Blizzard Technique, Incredible Strength, Medical Ninjutsu (Possibly More)_

_Specialties: Genjutsu, Chakra Control, Strategics, Medical Ninjutsu_

_Rank: Jounin ANBU on Hyuuga Neji's squad (Nara Shikamaru, Uchiha Sasuke, and Uzumaki Naruto included in the squad)_

_Kinjutsu: Undetermined (Most Likely None)_

Orochimaru let out a hiss between his teeth. Worthless information, all of it. Why was Kabuto still in his employ? Worthless brat. He shifted the papers with his tongue and licked his lips slowly.

Maybe he'd approach the Haruno girl himself. That was, after all, the only true way to measure her abilities. Besides, she probably needed some comfort after his bunshin infected her teammate and lover.

Well, lovers were always a problem, after all. Orochimaru had to have gotten rid of him somehow, so why not let his precious flower belive it was an accident?

He smirked slightly. Yes, the idea of confronting the cherry blossom girl cheered him slightly. Getting up, he retracted his tongue to a normal size and shook his hair out of snakelike eyes, golden and cruel.

_I'm coming, cherry blossom..._


	6. Bitter Tears

**Choice: **

**A Terrible Splendor**

---

Author's Note: Whoooo, another chapter! I hope you guys all like it. There isn't a lot of action in this one, but the next couple will feature a big fight between our lovely Saku-chan and the big bad Orochi-kun. Who'll be the victor? Only I know, for now! Hope you enjoy.

---

_Act VI: Bitter Tears_

---

Sakura woke up slowly.

Her eyes gradually opened, getting used to the cloudy haze of the hidden sun above her. After a moment, she realized that the foul smell that was in her nose was the stench of the graveyard, and the taste in her mouth that made her tongue thick and her eyes water wasn't any taste at all, just nervousness and angst. She sat up in stages, pushing with her arms and scooting her legs back and looking around her blankly. Neji was sitting some distance away, his hands resting on his knees, meditating in his usual fashion. To her left, Shikamaru was resting peacefully, a hand on his chest, another resting near hers.

She took his hand with hers and rubbed it against her cheek, wanting to wake him up. His eyes fluttered open, and he sat up, smiling. He wrapped his unoccupied arm around her waist and kissed her fully on the mouth, sending electric shocks through her body. She giggled as he released her, focusing on his twinkling, dark brown eyes. The sparkle of purple in them shone at her.

Her hand ran down his neck till it reached its base. She looked at it and gasped. The curse seal! She looked back at him. He was Orochimaru. His cruel gold eyes flickered at her surprised face, and the grip on her wrist was tight, vicelike. She looked frantically towards Neji, wanting to scream for help, but she couldn't speak. Neji was keeled over, kunais stuck in his side, Kabuto smirking next to him.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi were running for her. They would help. Suddenly, a giant snake burst from the ground, the kanji for 'sickness' on its back, and dove at them, killing them all in a giant swoop. It turned and started eating its tail, consuming itself until there was nothing but a sickening purple void. Sakura looked at it, feeling sick, and opened her mouth in a silent scream.

She was screaming.

Screaming.

Scream-

"Sakura!"

A sharp pain shot up her arm from her wrist, and her eyes snapped open, the jade orbs reflecting extreme fear. She looked around blindly, head whipping from left to right, until she caught a vision of an unmasked Neji to her right. He was gripping her wrist tightly, and she realized that the screaming was coming from her mouth. She stopped immediately and panted, cold sweat beading on her oversized forehead.

Neji looked at her with concern, kneeling down. "Sakura, what's wrong?" He was frowning, lines etched between pale lavender eyes.

She put a hand on her mouth, trying to control her breathing. She was hyperventilating, and she felt her heart trying to pound its way out of her chest. "N-nothing," she managed through her fingers. "Just a bad dream. Where's Shikamaru?"

Neji, still looking extremely confused and concerned, gestured to her left. She turned her head, and he was laying on the ground, exactly as he had been in her dream. But this time, there was no kiss, no warm smile and grasping of hands. Shikamaru lay still as a corpse, eyes closed, skin pale, fists clenching on and off. Sakura looked at him for a long time, chest heaving slowly, eyes filling with bitter tears. The curse seal had spread throughout his body, twining around his limbs like some sort of sick tattoo. Sakura touched his head lightly and frowned. Fever. He was in the first stage. She felt sick to her stomach.

Something warm was pressed on her face, and she started in alarm, but it was only Neji, gently rubbing a warm rag over her face to clear it from the tears and dirt. "Sakura, you need to focus," he said sternly but gently, moving the cloth to her hands and rubbing. "This is our fifth day, and Shikamaru's first. We only have two more after this for all of us. We need to _focus_. The only way we can cure Shikamaru is if you study the first body more, and you can't do that if your mind is on him."

Sakura took a deep breath, thankful for Neji's sense and care. "Arigatou. I'll start on the body now. Alert me if there's any change in his condition."

She stumbled towards the first corpse, tying her mask tightly in an effort to grasp some sense of normalcy. The mission came first. If she succeeded in this, Shikamaru could be saved, could be cured. She took up her usual sitting position next to the body and breathed in deeply another time, pressing a gloved finger onto a decaying arm.

Again she felt the chakra flowing through her body and the corpse's, and again she felt the startling difference between the two, the horrible silence of the body she was touching. Ignoring those forward-pushing thoughts, she delved further into the body, expanding her chakra to the neck once again. She collected it all there and examined the curse seal, the horrible blackness that had given her such pain. There was no sign of it outside of the blackness itself. There was only one way to find out what it was... and that was to go inside of it again.

Bracing herself for the pain, she let her chakra dive into the blackness. Pain wracked her entire body, and it was all she could do to keep the chakra swirling and examining. Her chakra's 'eye' saw a swirling void of purple and black, a decaying, deathly _alive_ thing. It seemed to be sucking in on itself, swallowing itself. What was going on? It was extremely smaller than it had been the day before, and it was growing smaller by the second as her chakra touched it.

The void swallowed itself completely, and the pain stopped.

Opening her eyes in surprise, she looked at the corpse's neck.

No curse seal!

It had... disappeared! It had eaten itself into oblivion!

A flash of her dream entered her mind's eye: the snake, devouring itself.

The snake with the kanji for 'disease' on it.

A swelling of joy rose in her chest, and she leapt to her feet. "I got it!" she whispered in excited happiness, feeling like she could kiss the world. "Neji!"

He was already halfway across the field, incinerating bodies with a fire jutsu. His head turned sharply when he heard her cry, and he ran towards her with extreme concern, worried that something was wrong again. "Sakura, what is it?"

She flung her arms around him. "Neji, I got it!"

"N-nani?" His voice was incredulous, and he pried her arms off of him. "What do you mean? You got what?"

"I have it! The answer!" She twirled, her pink hair flying from the masked face. "The seal isn't a curse seal!"

"Sakura, are you sick?" he asked anxiously.

"No, I'm perfect!" She laughed and pushed down her mask so Neji could see her eyes, clear and sparkling and bright. "It isn't a curse seal... it's the actual disease itself!"

"What are you talking about?" Neji asked, feeling her forehead.

"Neji, stop!" she protested, pushing his hand away. "Look, it's simple. Curse seals feed off of chakra, right?"

"Hai. Right."

"And this doesn't feed off of chakra, right?"

"Aa. So?"

"Neji, the only way a curse seal is a curse seal is because it feeds off of chakra. If it doesn't use chakra, it won't survive. Didn't it puzzle you that the chakra levels were intact, undamaged, but the seal thrived on?" Without waiting for an answer, she pressed on stubbornly. "It was in my dream, Neji. The disease... I went into the seal again." He started, looking angry.

"Sakura, I thought I told you not to! You were in extreme pain the last time you tried that, and-"

"Neji! Shut up, I'm still talking!" She smiled at his taken aback face. "Anyway, the rottenness inside it... the horrible decay, you remember I told you about it? It was some sort of purple-black void that kept on sucking into itself, getting smaller the whole time. After a couple minutes, maybe only two, it disappeared completely!"

He pushed down his mask, as well, frowning. "How does that work, then? Why doesn't it kill itself the moment of contact?"

Sakura looked at him thoughtfully. "The curse seal spreads throughout the body almost immediately. I bet that if I tried to chakra-search Shikamaru, I'd be in a lot worse pain... it'll be throughout his body. It takes far beyond the three days you're given to live to kill itself off."

"So how will we cure Shikamaru?" Neji asked. "It's impossible. You've found the root, but not the cure."

Sakura shook her head. "When I submerged my chakra into the neck, it went even faster, faster than I even imagined. With enough chakra, Shikamaru could be healed within an hour."

"But we don't have that much chakra," Neji said in a disappointed tone, looking at her pityingly, "and we can't go back for Naruto's Kyuubi-enhanced chakra, and there's no one here that has enough. Ours combined wouldn't do any help, either. We'd need a third person, at least, and there aren't any shinobi around here."

Sakura looked up. "No."

"What?"

She bit her lip, staring at him determinedly. "There are shinobi around her. A couple. One especially."

"Sakura, who-" Neji stopped. He looked at her disbelievingly. "You can't possibly be serious."

She ran her tongue over her top teeth, frowning. "I've never been more so. Orochimaru has chakra... enough to help us heal Shikamaru, anyway. We don't even have to use Orochimaru. Tsunade taught me a jutsu... we can kidnap Kabuto or something, take his chakra, and use it."

Neji put a hand over his mouth, rubbing it slightly. "That's way too dangerous."

"Oh, and you have another solution?" She looked at him with a frown intensified.

He looked at the sky, sighing a whistling sigh through his teeth. "No, but Sakura... we're talking about sneaking into Orochimaru's lair, knocking out one of the best shinobi in his little empire, sneaking him back out, all without being seen. We can't do that, not without being caught or killed."

"Maybe you can't," she countered, "but I can."

He looked at her with an expression akin to puzzlement on his face.

She sighed. "My specialty is Genjutsu, isn't it?"

He nodded slowly.

"I can make it seem like I'm not even there. I'll use a Henge no Jutsu. We kunoichi were trained from an early age to be someone we're not." She smiled slightly.

Neji was silent, staring at her with pale eyes.

"It can be done, Neji." She looked at him, pleading. "Please. For Shikamaru."

He sighed heavily. "You don't even know where to go."

She looked at him bravely, determined. "I don't have to."

"What do you mean?"

Sakura smiled wryly, sitting down. "Chances are, Kabuto or another lackey is listening to us right now, Neji. Orochimaru wanted me in the beginning, and he knows he'll get me in some way in the end." She paused, looking slightly sad. "I can strike up a deal with him. Battle him, even. But we need that chakra, Neji. You need it, I need it, and Shikamaru needs it the most. Without this chakra, he's... he's done for."

Neji, on instinct at her answer, scanned the trees with Byakugan. Nothing, surprisingly. But she was probably right, anyway. Orochimaru would lead her to his location in the end. But that could also lead to death. "Why am I not going, again? I can protect you, help you."

"Neji, this isn't about me, okay? We've been through this, dammit, I can take care of myself enough to do this for Shikamaru. I don't have enough energy to cloak both of us, Neji, and you need to stay here and watch Shikamaru for any changes. If you go in, the orders will be to kill you on sight. If I go in, Orochimaru will want to see me, at the very _least_. We can't have you killed... we can't take that chance."

"And what if _you're_ killed?"

Sakura said nothing for a moment, mouth working to form words. She cleared her throat, her mouth feeling suddenly very dry. "If I don't get back by the third day for him, start to go home. It means I was wrong, that they'll be going after you next. Start to go home, and when Shikamaru dies..." She swallowed, trying to regain control, for her voice had begun to waver. "You'll never make it home in time, not after waiting till is third day. If Shikamaru dies, try to carry him to Konoha and have a funeral there."

He nodded, stroking her hair. "I will, I promise."

"So many promises," Sakura said hollowly, looking at him. "You'll keep this one?"

"I'll keep this one."

---

Sakura rummaged through bags, taking out various supplies while Neji prepared their lunch. She slipped kunai and shuriken into her pouch and stuck a looped bundle of wires into her belt. She slipped on a plain black jacket to keep out the cold that came with every morning's fog and tucked bandages, ointments, and various herbal remedies into a medium-size pouch that she pinned to its inside. Her ANBU katana took its usual place at her back. Sighing, Sakura ran a hand through her pink locks, surveying the bleak landscape. This would probably be harder than she thought.

Neji handed her a rice ball and some water and she nodded her thanks, sitting next to the various knapsacks. Shikamaru rested not far away, a cool cloth on his head, an assortment of medical supplies littered around his sleeping form. Sakura looked worriedly at him and took a bite of her rice, chewing carefully.

She swallowed. "Okay, Neji. Re-cool the cloth every half hour. When the seal is fully spread, he'll probably get a worse fever and start vomiting. Make sure the cloth is cool, and feed him two of the pills in the green bottle every three hours. Make him drink some jasmine tea with the herbs in the blue container and a little rice, but nothing else. On the third day, with the genjutsu-"

"You'll be back by then," Neji interrupted, his face leaving no room for argument.

Sakura didn't look him, seeming very interested in her feet and the food in front of her. "While I'm gone on the third day, just try and comfort him as much as possible. Try to cancel the genjutsu, though I'm sure it won't work with a simple jutsu like that. Try to wake him up from it, if you can, though I don't think that'll work, either." She breathed in deeply. "Just take care of him, okay?"

"Sakura, relax." Neji shook his head slightly and smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "We'll be fine here. Finish eating and get going. Day five will end sooner than we'd like."

Sakura nodded and stuffed the rest of the rice in her mouth, packing the rest of her bare essentials. On second thought, she reached for a certain scroll, tucking it safely into her belt. Standing, she reached up and took off her hitai-ate, tying her hair in a tight ponytail. Her bangs fell out, and she tied the protector on her forehead, covering as much of her face as possible. She adjusted her cat mask and sighed, slinging her small bag over her shoulder. "I guess I'm off now."

Neji stood, placing a brotherly hand on her shoulder. "Good luck."

Sakura hesitated for a moment, half-turned away, her mask revealing nothing. She bit her lip from within her hiding place, sighing silently and casting a hidden look towards Shikamaru. "Domo." She smiled slightly, though he couldn't see it. "You, too."

Neji nodded his thanks, and she took off, leaping off the ground and covering it in long strides, deciding not to take her path through the trees like she usually prefered to. She gripped her hand tightly around the string of her bag and adjusted her hitai-ate with her other hand, taking an especially spectacular jump and clearing a patch of dangerous-looking moss.

Struck by a sudden feeling of confusion, Sakura stopped. Where in all the hells was she going, anyway? There was no way to find Orochimaru. She must have been crazy to even suggest this idea._ What was I thinking?_ she wondered angrily, looking around, feeling completely lost. _Where am I going? There's no way to get there without a map, or a guide, or... or anything! I have to go back. I have to help Shikamaru any way I can, and getting lost is certainly not going to get him better._

"Lost, little girl?"

Sakura whipped her head around in the act of turning at the semi-familiar voice, anger rising quickly. She stood her ground, hand resting lightly on her katana. "I'm not a little girl anymore," she snapped.

Kabuto smirked, pushing up his round, shining glasses with his index finger in a trademark gesture. "True, very true. It's nice to see you, Sakura-chan."

She hated it whenever anyone but Naruto called her that. "Shut it, Kabuto. What are you here for? You've obviously been following me. Nice chakra masking."

"Flattery will get you everywhere, cherry blossom." He leaned casually on a tree. "In fact, I haven't been following you. I was about to just go and check up on you, Orochimaru's orders, when I spotted you heading my way. Tired of Nara?"

Sakura stiffened visibly, the hand on the katana tightening into an angry fist. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, I suppose that as a corpse he's not a very good lover, is he?"

He smirked at her rage.

She was quivering with fury. "You... you sick bastard! That nin... he was... he was a bunshin, wasn't he?"

Kabuto looked mildly surprised. "You figured it out already? Smart girl. A bunshin of Orochimaru's. He had me escort it to you to dispose of the strategist."

Sakura let out a noise in the back of her throat that sounded somewhat like a stifled, angry sob.

"Now, now, cherry blossom, don't get uptight. It had to be done." Kabuto stood at attention now, on alert for any sudden movements. "Lovers are always a problem with Orochimaru's future helpers, aren't they? First you pining after Sasuke-kun, now that Nara loving you... It's a pity."

"Future helpers? Why the hell do you think I would help _him_, that snake bastard?" Sakura asked furiously.

"Language, my blossom, language." Kabuto's smile curved smugly. "You're so like your mentor, dear Tsunade-sama... she almost healed Orochimaru in the promise to get her loved ones back, remember? I think the ill boy in question will persuade you. You've come all this way to get extra chakra, I suspect, haven't you?"

Sakura stood silently.

"Well, you won't get it until you see Orochimaru. It was clever of you, terribly clever, to figure out the cure to the disease, but that will only work with one person, won't it? How to cure the rest of the world? And how will you do it all in time?"

Sakura froze. Why hadn't she thought of that? Her elation had made her careless.

"Hai, I know, you hadn't been thinking of that at the time, not when the cure was so very close, were you?" Kabuto said telepathically, quirking his head and giving her a happy little smile that made her want to punch him. "All those questions, cherry blossom, and more, can be answered by our dear Orochimaru-sama, and you know it. So why don't you just back down and let me take you to him? It was what you were after, anyway, wasn't it?"

The pink-haired jounin looked away for a moment, then gave a rattling sigh that seemed to shake her whole being. "Fine. Take me to him."

Kabuto seemed ecstatic that she'd agreed. "Wonderful! Just follow me, Sakura-chan. But remember, no attacking, or you'll never find your way, ANBU member or not. We cover our trail well."

"I can imagine." She scowled, but followed dutifully as Kabuto leapt into the trees, starting the journey to Orochimaru's lair.

To the cure.


	7. Bloody Lover

**Choice:**

**A Terrible Splendor**

---

Author's Note: Wow, this chapter was extremely fun to write. Go Sakura, kick his ass! Um... ahem. Anyway. Since I have the plot for this story down on paper, I'm wondering what kind of fic I should do next. NaruSaku? I haven't done one of those. KankSaku won't get many fans, but hey, it'd be fun to write, right? One thing, though: I will NOT write a story all about SasuSaku or ItaSaku. I dunno why. I can read 'em, but I really like doing the more challenging, unique pairings more. So in your reviews, give me some ideas for pairings, and I'll try to please you. (Oooh, I'm leaning towards NejiSaku...) This is the second-to-last chapter.

---

_Act VII: Bloody Lover_

---

Sakura's eyes were everywhere: flickering over Kabuto's smirking face with supreme hatred, scanning the trees ahead for any sign of Orochimaru's lair, looking in relief at her own hand, the hand clenched around a kunai. Her protection. She needed any sense of protection she could get right now.

The trail they had been following seemed endless, and the waiting was torture for her. Every second not getting the cure was a second wasted, a second off Shikamaru's life, a second off the possibility of having a life with him at all.

Kabuto seemed to actually enjoy her torment immensely. "Relax, Sakura-chan, we're almost there," he said with a smile that made her want to smack it off. "Patience is a shinobi's virtue."

Sakura had to use all of her will power not to tackle him then and there. "Like you would know anything about virtue, traitor."

"Hey, now, be nice," Kabuto remarked, smirking. "It wouldn't do to make me angry and just happen to... forget the location of Orochimaru's hiding place, now, would it?"

Sakura was glad her mask disguised her face twisting in hatred, but she wasn't sure the way it emanated from her very being could possibly be overlooked. "Just take me there."

"Please, Sakura-chan. We're already there." He stopped very suddenly, feet skidding on a tree limb, and gestured to a rocky cliff in front of them.

Sakura leapt from the trees and walked out onto the ledge as Kabuto leapt down and out of sight. Molding chakra into her feet, she hung upside-down. Kabuto was looking at her with a smirk on his face, a boulder rolled out of the way, revealing a large tunnel. Scowling at his smug face, Sakura lowered herself carefully into the cave, gripping the kunai tightly. Kabuto rolled the large stone back in place at the opening of the cave, sealing the cave and cutting off the only source of light.

A spark caught her eyes, and Sakura looked to her right. A quick fire jutsu from Kabuto had illuminated a series of wooden torches that lined the tunnel. "This way," he announced, beginning down the tunnel.

Sakura followed warily, green eyes swiveling to the left and right, above, below. She stepped as quietly as possible, a trait of habit now, but her shoes still clicked eerily on the strangely smooth floor. After a while, they entered a large chamber, where Kabuto told her to wait. "Orochimaru will be with you soon," he said, leaving the room.

The pink-haired ANBU frowned, switching the kunai to her left hand. She was in Orochimaru's lair, so close to the cure, and sitting in a fucking waiting room like she was at the dentist's office! Why was she trusting Kabuto, anyway? He was the enemy. The door could open in five seconds, and a barrage of kunai could be fired at her, killing her instantly.

"Sakura-chan. Lovely of you to join us, my cherry blossom."

She'd recognize that voice anywhere. Slick, serpentine, oily and disgusting with more than a touch of malice.

"Orochimaru. I'd say I was happy to see you, but..."

The Sannin smirked slightly, moving closer, almost sliding like the snake he summoned. "Dear, dear, it seems I've made an enemy of you, Sakura-san."

"You made an enemy of me five years ago," Sakura spat. "Don't try to sneak into my good graces now. Just hurry up and give me the cure, and I'll leave you alone."

Orochimaru smiled, going a little closer, and stopped. "Now, don't be hasty, Sakura-san. Perhaps we can work out an agreement."

"What kind of _agreement_?" Sakura gave the word a nasty edge. "ANBU don't negotiate, Orochimaru. You should know that. Either you give me the cure or I force it out of you." Since when was she brave enough to confront a Sannin like this? Sakura struggled to maintain a calm composure, but inside she was quaking. This was crazy. She was actually readying herself to fight a Sannin. Orochimaru seemed likewise puzzled, and extremely amused.

"My, my. Such a temper. You want to fight me, cherry blossom?"

Sakura was silent, but the hand that clutched the kunai was quivering with rage.

Orochimaru smiled. It made her want to be sick. "I'll propose my deal, then. I'll give you the cure... this I promise, kunoichi, and I don't go back on my word... and you come with me."

"G-go with you?"

"Hai." He smiled. "It's been such a very long time since I've had a female on my little team here. Kabuto could use an experienced, Hokage-taught medic such as yourself to help with his work. And, of course, your talents are beyond valuable. You might even be the catch Sasuke was... in fact, maybe more. Sasuke had horrible medical capacity, you see, and with these arms... since Tsunade didn't grant my request and turned against me, you're the best thing." His smile was close-lipped. "Think about it, cherry blossom: your lover goes free of this disease, you cure the rest of the world, and you gain invaluable experience here in Sound for so little a price?"

Sakura was silent. Good God. He was asking her to join him. But to save the lives of so many others... _to save the life of Shikamaru_!

_Kami-sama, he's asking the impossible_, she thought to herself in a panic, loosening the grip on the kunai.

_No_, she thought suddenly, _be logical. Be rational. He wants you to freak out and choose what seems like the easiest answer. What can I do?_

_I have no chance of fighting a Sannin._

_I can't join him._

_I can't kill Shikamaru._

_I can't kill the rest of the world._

_I have no chance of winning a fight with a Sannin._

_And yet..._

She'd beaten Tsunade before, but that had been different. She knew her teacher's strengths and weaknesses. It had been a sort of training, a practice fight. A real life-or-death battle with Orochimaru was so different it was beyond laughable.

_I have no chance_.

But her fingers tightened on the kunai handle.

_No._

_I'll join him._

_For Shikamaru_.

"All right," she blurted, words tumbling out in a mess of fear and anger.

"Nani?" he asked smoothly.

"All right," she repeated. "I'll join you."

He smiled again, that close-mouthed smile. "I knew you would, my dear. I knew you wouldn't fail me."

That smile.

She hated that smile.

_I hate that smile._

She threw the kunai.

It happened in slow motion for her: her grip shifted, her arm pulled back. She took a breath, and her other arm went in front of her for balance. Her feet moved positions, and her body leaned back. She shifted her body weight to her front foot and pressed on it, the arm with the kunai extending, the other one sweeping back. At its full length, the kunai handle left her fingertips. And then, like a shot, it was gone, flying towards Orochimaru.

The Sannin leapt out of the way just in time, the kunai embedding into the cave wall with a sharp twang. His face contorted slightly. "We're dishonest, are we? You're so like myself, Sakura-chan. Did anyone ever tell you that?"

"I'm nothing like you!" Sakura shouted, her voice echoing throughout the chamber. In a haze of rage, she ran towards him, charging and forming handsigns.

Orochimaru smirked, licking his lips with an extremely long tongue, and waited as five clones ran with her. They surrounded him on all sides and started punching and kicking, pulling out kunai and shuriken. Orochimaru blocked them all, twisting and coiling, snapping this one's arm, punching that one away, stabbing another with its own kunai. "Futon: Daitoppa!" he snarled. A huge gust of wind spread from his body. Sakura's clones disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving Orochimaru staring at nothing. _Where did she go..._? he wondered lazily, looking around.

"Doton: Shinju Zanshu no Jutsu!" A muffled cry. Orochimaru looked down in alarm just in time to be pulled underground as Sakura burst from beneath him. She quickly flipped backwards in alarm as his tongue shot from his revealed head. She pulled out her katana and blocked its advances rapidly, weaving in and out of the thrusts and twists like fighting a snake. Orochimaru chuckled at a pause in the swordfight. "You're quite a threat, Sakura-chan. Really, you've improved."

Sakura scowled. "I don't need a compliment from you."

"But I'm giving it anyway." His tongue shot out unexpectedly and knocked off her mask, sending it flying, broken in half. "Now we can see that pretty face."

Sakura gnashed her teeth and ran towards him as quickly as she could. The tongue shot out, but she swept her katana though. She cleaved it cleanly, blood spurting from the wounded muscle. Orochimaru's face contorted again, and he looked angry as he shot his tongue at her again. She kicked it away, but he grabbed her ankle and slammed her to the ground. Sakura felt a rib crack and the ground rumble. She looked at Orochimaru and cried out; snakes flew from the ground and towards her, she who was pinned by his tongue. Grasping her katana like a lifesource, she swiped through the tongue again and stood to face the fray of snakes. She lunged towards them, carving her way through; blood spilled over her like a fountain. She swung frantically, holding her breath at the stink of snake. She nearly threw up from the feeling of a thousand snakes coling around her.

_Clang_.

She opened her eyes to see a snake with a sword protruding from its mouth. The snake, in turn, was coming from Orochimaru's throat. He smiled and licked the blade. "You admire my sword?"

Sakura panted, eyes wide in alarm.

"Now, now, Sakura-chan. You asked for a fight, and I'm afraid you're going to get it. His wounded tongue slivered onto her own katana, licking it in... anticipation?

She pulled her sword away in disgust, frowning nervously. The sword shot out at an insane speed, and it was all she could do to put her own up in time not to get sliced in half. Her own breath echoed in her ears with the clangs of steel on heavenly steel as she danced around the cave, her feet stirring up dust where they touched. A forceful lunge knocked her off balance, and she teetered dangerously. His sword shot out, cutting her at the side. White-hot pain seared through her as a spurt of blood came from the wound. Clutching it and wincing, her other hand clenched the hilt of the katana with renewed anger as the tongue-handled sword flew at her. The dirty snake wouldn't give her time to heal herself. Suddenly, with the fastest move she'd ever seen, the sword was knocked out of her hand. It clattered to the floor uselessly, five feet away from her.

Orochimaru stalked slowly towards her, tongue whipping out, dripping blood from its cut-off part as it wound around Sakura's wrists. She grunted furiously, trying in a panic to get out of the deathlike grip.

He tossed his head casually, sending her flying behind him and thumping with a huge boom into the floor. She stifled a cry as tongue flicked easily and horribly, sending her crashing into the wall. She fell limply to the floor. Her body felt like one big bruise. She had to move. He was coming closer.

_Have to move..._

Sakura, hand shaking, put a finger in the wound at her side and swallowed, forming handsigns. Orochimaru watched, frowning slightly, as she went through them. "Girl--" he started, but she interrupted him, eyes flashing with determination.

"KUCHIYOSE NO JUTSU!"

A burst of smoke billowed throughout the large cave, obscuring everything from view. Sakura smiled weakly as the smoke cleared at the towering slug next to her. "Katsuyu."

"Sakura." The Summon inclined her head majestically and looked curiously at her. "You're hurt."

The pink-haired girl snorted. "No kidding. Would you mind distracting Orochimaru while I heal myself enough to fight more?"

"Gladly." The slug looked almost satisfied as she turned towards Orochimaru. Clones of the giant slug came from her body, sliding towards Orochimaru. The Sannin had a fearsome look on his face as he walked forward. Katsuyu looked at him and spoke softly, as was her way, but with a touch of hatred. "You cannot summon Manda, can you? He said he would kill you."

Orochimaru didn't look at the Summon, but continued. His tongue shot towards Sakura before Katsuyu could do anything. The mini-slugs around him covered his body, but he hacked them off with the sword as his tongue wrapped around Sakura's neck. "You," he spoke softly, dangerously, "are talented."

"Didn't I say earlier I don't want your compliments?" Sakura hissed, her voice rasping from the pressure on her windpipe. She grasped at the tongue with her hands, trying to pry it off. It was like a vise.

The Snake Sannin's face contorted, an expression on it that made Sakura, the part of Sakura that was still twelve and afraid, want to run away.

But that Sakura was gone now.

She twisted her hands around the tongue and squeezed hard, taking a deep a breath as possible. Black spots appeared in front of her eyes. _I have to do this before he suffocates me_. The muscles in her arms flexed as she lifted the tongue up. It was heavy. Her vision began to cloud. She grasped harder, eyes closed, teeth clenched, straining for her life, for Shikamaru's life, for Orochimaru's death. A burst of hatred spread through her for this man: this man who had taken Sasuke, who had caused her teacher so much strife, who had brought about all of Konoha's latest tragedies, who had killed her love, who had broken up her friends.

Sakura had never felt like this, with fury coiling in her blood, bursting over her bones and seeping into her very being. She had never looked at anyone this way, either, with green eyes that could kill. Orochimaru blinked his serpentine eyes and smirked grossly, his tongue tightening around her throat. "Angry that you're about to die, cherry blossom? What a terrible waste. I think I might take your body when I'm finished with you and examine it for any hidden powers... a summoning jutsu already, I'm impressed."

She couldn't breathe.

Katsuyu's slugs were being destroyed as soon as they touched Orochimaru's fiery chakra barrier. The giant slug herself was spitting acid at him, trying to free her mistress from the Sannin, but there was no effect. Sakura knew there wouldn't be. Nothing would affect him. She would suffocate.

It came as a jolt:

she would die.

Tears spilled over her eyes, clinging to her lashes as she fought for breath, fought frantically against his hold. Her hands clawed at the tongue until his hold tightened so she couldn't move them, and she just let them rest there, letting her tears fall onto the muscle as Orochimaru walked forward, amused. "Poor little girl. You thought you would win, didn't you?"

Sakura shook her head as best she could. She felt herself losing her life, felt it being sucked out of her slowly and painfully. Her throat ached like it had been slit all over from the inside.

"And you had been so promising."

Sakura's breath caught.

What was she doing, standing here crying? Would Naruto do that? Would Sasuke? Would Neji or Shikamaru or Tsunade or Sai or Kakashi or Yamato or anyone?

No.

And neither would she.

With speed she hadn't even known she possessed, she grasped the thick tongue that encased her neck and planted her feet firmly on the ground, ignoring the way her vision was dying. She pulled up with all her strength, trying once again to lift the tongue. This time, somehow, it went up easily. With a burst of strength, she tossed it and Orochimaru over her shoulder, loosening the hold on her arms. She grasped a kunai and cut it off of her neck as Orochimaru crashed into the wall inches where she had before, making an imprint further in than hers. She grasped her katana. Before he could get up, Sakura was running, charging, taking greedy gulps of air as she curled her hands into fists. "Shosen Jutsu!" she cried. Both fists flared up with blue chakra. She slammed her fist into Orochimaru's face, feeling with a vidictive satisfaction the bone crack. The other fist went into his stomach. "No more," she whispered roughly, "am I going to sit down and have life and death happen all around me." She fingered the hilt of her katana.

And pushed into Orochimaru's chest.

The Snake Sannin's eyes widened, their yellow going dull as he coughed out massive amounts of blood onto Sakura's blade. The pink-haired kunoichi kept the blade in for a moment and then pulled it out, looking and feeling oddly calm. "The cure."

Orochimaru looked at her with a small smirk. "You are a lovely kunoichi, my cherry blossom."

"The _cure_."

He chuckled weakly, spurting more blood. "I'm sure you've realized that pure chakra is the answer to a single case."

Sakura nodded, vaguely noticing that her pink hair had drops of red in it.

"For a mass cure, you must create a chakra... a chakra bomb of sorts."

"A bomb?"

Orochimaru nodded. "Chakra. Rather like Rasengan. When you throw a chakra-enhanced projectile and hit it straight in the middle, it will burst, sending the necessary chakra, which has built up strength, raining onto the ground. It will affect only the sick."

Sakura's face lit up slightly as she turned to Katsuyu, nodding. The slug disappeared, and Sakura turned to leave, healing herself on the way. That she even had chakra left was a mystery to her.

Suddenly, Kabuto materialized in front of her, his face thunderous until he glanced at Orochimaru's body. "Oro... Orochimaru!"

"Dead." Sakura looked at the silver-haired medic in front of her.

"You-" He started towards her, reaching for a weapon.

"Don't even try, Kabuto," she snarled, pointing her katana at him. "I'll let you live. But don't fight me. You will lose." Since when would Kabuto listen to her? But surprisingly, the medic bowed to her and stepped out of her way, an awe-stricken look on his face. "You have my eternal respect."

Sakura gathered chakra in her fist and punched the boulder, watching as it crumbled. The cave walls trembled from the force of the blow, and Sakura realized that she'd have to leave before it came down on top of them. She looked at Kabuto over her shoulder.

"I don't want it."

And she took a running start, leaping off the cliff as the rocks crashed to where she had been standing just seconds before.

For a period of glorious, timeless moments, she was airborne, the wind streaming through her red-dotted pink hair and roaring in her ears, making her bright eyes water with joy and exhilaration. Struck with happiness despite the pain in her throat and side, she laughed at the starry sky as she descended towards the trees.

It was Day Seven, and Haruno Sakura had won.

---

"Neji!"

The brown-haired Hyuuga turned immediately at the familiar voice, the twitching body in his arms fidgeting violently. He set the tortured Shikamaru down and ran towards the sound as a blur of pink and red and green tackled him in a hug. "I got it! I found the cure, I defeated Orochimaru!"

Neji's lavender eyes widened. "Nani? You did what?"

She pulled away from him, and he notice that her whole body was bloodied and bruised. She looked like a wreck... but a happy wreck. Ecstatic, really. "I defeated him!" she said, exhilarated. "We have to... make Rasengan!"

"Calm down a little," Neji advised, though his own heart was pounding crazily. "Explain this."

"We have to make a ball of pure chakra and send it into the sky," she panted, her eyes glimmering with promise. "Then send a kunai with chakra in it into the very middle. It'll explode like a bomb and affect only the sick, curing all of them! Neji, we'll be able to cure everyone!"

The prodigy coulnd't believe what he was hearing. It was surreal. He placed his hand out, palm up. It seemed like a blur as Sakura moved her hands around as she had seen Naruto do countless times, pouring her chakra into it. Neji placed a hand over hers, feeding his own energy into the whirling ball.

It was a marvel. This was the cure, this energy ball, this was the way everyone could be cured. He tossed it into the air and watched as Sakura threw a kunai with deadly prescision after it.

When the kunai hit, there was no noise for a long time. Then, after a moment, a huge boom echoed throughout the area. Spurts of blue chakra poured like rain farther than they could see from the trees, pelting everywhere.

Sakura knelt by Shikamaru as the chakra sunk into his chest. He stopped twitching, and the curse seal retracted, going back into itself and then disappearing altogether. His skin turned from the gray it had been to a healthy color, and his eyes fluttered.

Sakura clutched at him, crying in happiness. "Shikamaru! You're alive!"

His eyes opened just in time to see her fall over him from pure exhaustion, muttering under her breath.

"I love you, I love you."

He looked up at the blue-and-star-spangled sky and took a breath, clutching his bloody lover to his chest.

For once, nothing seemed troublesome.


	8. Gorgeous Smile

**Choice:**

**A Terrible Splendor**

---

Author's Note: YAY last chapter! What a wild ride... this was definitely one of my more serious fics. Next is going to be a good ol' NejiSaku... except, contrary to my regular style, they won't know each other very well in this next fic, so I'll have to challenge myself to really make their relationship grow, y'know? Fun stuff. Fun stuff. Anyways, I hope you guys all enjoyed the story. I know I did!

---

_Act VIII: Gorgeous Smile_

---

Nara Shikamaru's brown eyes opened slowly at the not unpleasant touch on his stomach. A light weight rested there that hadn't been there before, and it had disturbed his sleep. Sighing slightly, the lazy jounin opened his eyes fully, looking at his stomach to figure out one of his daily morning puzzles.

A shock of pink hair spilled over his bare stomach and chest, with a sliver of peachy skin underneath. The same skin covered a hand that was on his chest, connected to a small lump that was moving up and down with light breaths.

Smiling slightly at the solution to his puzzle, the twenty-two-year-old ANBU turned slightly and reached for his hair tie, knotting his hair into a low ponytail gently as to not wake the sleeping form on top of him. He caressed her face gently, tucking a strand of silky pink hair behind her ear, and closed his eyes again, leaning against the headboard of the bed.

He remembered a couple years ago, when she had saved his life from a fatal disease and killed one of the Three Lengendary Sannin. He remembered when she had woken up, how he had kissed her roughly and passionately and had proclaimed for the first time (of many) that he loved her beyond all words. He remembered his proposal... awkward as it was, it was successful. He had taken her out to dinner, given her flowers, done all the things that Ino had said to do... and then, when he kissed her, he'd slipped a ring onto her ring finger of her left hand. "Marry me?" he'd breathed into her mouth.

He remembered the way she'd turned away, looking at the ring, and he remembered the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. She was refusing. Then, all of a sudden, she'd practically knocked him down with a tight hug and covered his face with kisses, an exhuberant 'yes'. He remembered their wedding, how beautiful she had looked in the pale yellow kimono, how happy everyone had been for them. He remembered how Naruto and Sasuke and Kakashi and Sai, who had come back for the wedding, had embraced her and kissed her on the cheek. They had been her only family till then.

He remembered when she had announced she was pregnant, the way she had looked ecstatic and worried all at once. He remembered the day of the birth, when Tsunade had gone in and helped her through it, when he had gone in and squeezed her hand and kissed her fingers, and he remembered the inexplicable joy and pride and love he'd felt when he'd held the infant for the very first time. That had been a year and a half ago, and now their child, their son Satoya (named after Sakura's late father), was probably still sound asleep in his room.

Shikamaru looked out the window, watching pale shafts of light come in through the clouds. It was a good day for cloud-watching, he decided, if he got enough time alone to actually do it. What with a house of their own, and constant droppings-in from friends and family, not to mention the lovable yet demanding Satoya, he hadn't watched clouds in what seemed like forever.

Sakura stirred slightly, wrapping an arm around his waist. "G'morning," she whispered into his skin, smiling.

"Morning." He smiled at her, and she looked up, emerald green meeting dark brown. "Y'know what?"

"Nani?" she asked sleepily, sitting up and laying her head against his shoulder.

"I was thinking about when Satoya was born," he answered lazily, kissing her forehead.

She smiled slightly. "Painful yet beautiful. What about it?"

"Remember how you were so positive it was a boy?"

"I remember. I was right." She smiled a gorgeous smile reserved only for him and pecked him on the cheek. "What of it?"

He smiled. "I remember how I kept on wishing it didn't have your hair."

She sighed. "Not this again, Shika."

"Well, wouldn't that be horrible, though? To be a boy and have pink hair?"

Sakura rolled her eyes. "I think it would be cute."

"Cute for you, maybe. He'd be so teased, though!" Shikamaru protested. "I'd have to dye it or something."

"You wouldn't dare!" Sakura said, horrified and amused. She knew he would have never died it. She'd been told numerous times that her hair was marvelous. "What if we had a pink-haired girl?"

"Well, that'd be fine," Shikamaru answered. "The girls are a bit high-maintenance though, especially pink-haired ones."

She smacked him lightly on the shoulder. "Hey, hey! Watch it! I can break your nose as soon as heal it, you remember."

He winced. "I remember. Remind me never to call you Pinky again."

Sakura laughed. "I think you'll keep that in mind without your prompting."

"Mommy?"

The jounin woman looked up from her husband and smiled brightly. "Morning, Satoya. Come on up."

The toddler took his father's strong hands and clambered awkwardly up the bed, snuggling in between them. "Guess what, Mommy?"

"Nani?"

"Uncle Naruto and Uncle Sasuke said they'd teach me Rasengan and Chidori today!" Satoya announced proudly.

Shikamaru sighed. "At two years old? Not this again."

Sakura muttered under her breath. "That is so like those two. I bet you anything Hinata-chan doesn't know about this, or Naruto wouldn't be doing it. I can't really stop Sasuke, though." She looked at her toddler. "Well, when you see your Uncle Sasuke, tell him that if he teaches you Chidori before I say so, I'll give him a taste of his favorite super-strength, eh?" She cracked her knuckles, and Satoya giggled.

"Aa, Mommy! I'll tell him!"

"And that's that," Sakura said, satisfied. "Now, who wants breakfast?"

"I do! I do!" Satoya hopped on the bed, and Sakura picked him up, holding his hand as she put him on the floor. "Well then, let's go make some pancakes. Shika, come on down, okay? The dishes are waiting." She winked at him and blew a kiss before following the tug on her arm down to the kitchen.

Shikamaru smirked slightly and leaned back again, looking at the sun. No cloud-watching today, it seemed. It would be a busy Saturday.

Oh, well. No matter how troublesome it got, he loved it, didn't he?

And Sakura would somehow always find time to watch the clouds with him, anyway.

He grinned, recalling the only words he remembered saying besides 'I love you' after his sickness.

"Not troublesome at all."


End file.
